FR'ElB 
 
 A 1 m 
 
 iinclairLewis 
 
P5 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNDERGRADUATE LIBRARY 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 GAYLOBD 
 
 PRINTED INU.S.A. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 PS3523.E957F8 1919 
 
 Free air, 
 
 3 1924 014 415 321 
 
B Cornell University 
 B Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014415321 
 
FREE AIR 
 
 BY 
 
 SINCLAIR LEWIS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE JOB, Etc. 
 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 
 Mtu^ in ttie United States cf Ai 
 
 VR\S LBH^n 
 
 it 
 
PS 
 
 ft 
 
 COFYSIGST, igi9, BY 
 
 HARCOURT. BRACE AND HOWE, I«c. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I MISS BOLTWOCH) OF BROOKLYN IS LOSt IN 
 
 THE MUD 
 
 II CLAIRE ESCAPES FROM RESPECTABILITY 
 III A YOUNG MAN IN A RAINCOAT 
 
 IV A ROOM WITHOUT 
 
 V RELEASE BRAKES SHIFT TO THIRD 
 
 VI THE LAND OF BILLOWING CLOUDS 
 VII THE GREAT AMERICAN FRYING PAN 
 VIII THE DISCOVERY OF CANNED SHRIMPS AND 
 
 HESPERIDES 
 
 IX THE MAN WITH AGATE EYES . 
 X THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE HILLSIDE 
 
 ROAD 
 
 XI SAGEBRUSH TOURISTS OF THE GREAT HIGH 
 
 WAY 
 
 XII THE WONDERS OF NATURE WITH ALL MOD 
 ERN IMPROVEMENTS .... 
 
 XIII ADVENTURERS BY FIRELIGHT . 
 
 XIV THE BEAST OF THE CORRAL . 
 XV THE BLACK DAY OF THE VOYAGE . 
 
 XVI THE SPECTACLES OF AUTHORITY 
 XVII THE VAGABOND IN GREEN 
 XVIII THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE 
 XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES 
 
 XX THE FREE WOMAN 
 
 XXI THE MINE OF LOST SOULS 
 XXII ACROSS THE ROOF OF THE WORLD . 
 XXIII THE GRAEL IN A BACK YAED IN YAKIMA 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 ID 
 21 
 36 
 
 49 
 66 
 
 74 
 85 
 
 lOI 
 
 112 
 119 
 
 129 
 
 138 
 149 
 
 154 
 165 
 176 
 188 
 194 
 205 
 219 
 228 
 237 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEK PAGE 
 
 XXIV HER OWN PEOPLE 242 
 
 XXV THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE .... 254 
 
 XXVI A CLASS IN ENGINEERING AND OMELETS . 27O 
 
 XXVII THE VICIOUSNESS OF NICE THINGS . . 279 
 
 XXVIII THE MORNING COAT OF MR. HUDSON B. 
 
 RIGGS 290 
 
 XXIX THE ENEMY LOVE 3OO 
 
 XXX THE VIRTUOUS PLOTTERS .... 307 
 
 XXXI THE KITCHEN INTIMATE .... 3IO 
 
 XXXII THE CORNFIELD ARISTOCRAT . . .331 
 
 XXXIII TOOTH-MUG TEA 345 
 
 XXXIV THE BEGINNING OF A STORY . . . 36 V 
 
FREE AIR 
 
FREE AIR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MISS BOLTWOOD OF BROOKLYN IS LOST IN 
 THE MUD 
 
 WHEN the windshield was closed it became so 
 filmed with rain that Claire fancied she was 
 piloting a drowned car in dim spaces under the sea. 
 When it was open, drops jabbed into her eyes and 
 chilled her cheeks. She was excited and thoroughly 
 miserable. She realized that these Minnesota country 
 roads had no respect for her polite experience on Long 
 Island parkways. She felt like a woman, not like a 
 driver. 
 
 But the Gomez-Dep roadster had seventy horse- 
 power, and sang songs. Since she had left Minne- 
 apolis nothing had passed her. Back yonder a truck 
 had tried to crowd her, and she had dropped into a 
 ditch, climbed a bank, returned to the road, and after 
 that the truck was not. Now she was regarding a 
 view more splendid than mountains above a garden 
 by the sea — a stretch of good road. To her pas- 
 senger, her father, Claire chanted: 
 
 " Heavenly ! There's some gravel. We can make 
 Pme. We'll hustle on to the next town and get dry." 
 
 3 
 
4 FREE AIR 
 
 " Yes. But don't mind me. You're doing very- 
 well," her father sighed. 
 
 Instantly, the dismay of it rushing at her, she saw 
 the end of the patch of gravel. The road ahead was 
 a wet black smear, criss-crossed with ruts. The car 
 shot into a morass of prairie gumbo — which is mud 
 mixed with tar, fly-paper, fish glue, and well-chewed, 
 chocolate-covered caramels. When catde get into 
 gumbo, the farmers send for the stump-dynamite and 
 try blasting. 
 
 It was her first really bad stretch of road. She 
 was frightened. Then she was too appallingly busy 
 to be frightened, or to be Miss Claire Boltwood, or 
 to comfort her uneasy father. She had to drive. 
 Her frail graceful arms put into it a vicious vigor 
 that was genius. 
 
 When the wheels struck the slime, they slid, they 
 wallowed. The car skidded. It was terrifyingly out 
 of control. It began majestically to turn toward the 
 ditch. She fought the steering wheel as though she 
 were shadow-boxing, but the car kept contemptuously 
 staggering till it was sideways, straight across the 
 road. Somehow, it was back again, eating into a 
 rut, going ahead. She didn't know how she had 
 done it, but she had got it back. She longed to take 
 time to retrace her own cleverness in steering. She, 
 didn't. She kept going. 
 
 The car backfired, slowed. She yanked the gear. 
 
FREE AIR 5 
 
 from third into first. She sped up. The motor ran 
 like a terrified pounding heart, while the car crept 
 on by inches through filthy mud that stretched ahead 
 of her without relief. 
 
 She was battling to hold the car in the principal 
 rut. She snatched the windshield open, and concen- 
 trated on that left rut. She felt that she was keeping 
 the wheel from climbing those high sides of the rut, 
 those six-inch walls of mud, sparkling with tiny grits. 
 Her mind snarled at her arms, " Let the ruts do the 
 steering. You're just fighting against them." It 
 worked. Once she let the wheels alone they com- 
 fortably followed the furrows, and for three seconds 
 she had that delightful belief of every motorist after 
 every mishap, " Now that this particular disagreeable- 
 ness is over, I'll never, never have any trouble again ! " 
 
 But suppose the engine overheated, ran out of 
 water ? Anxiety twanged at her nerves. And the deep 
 distinctive ruts were changing to a complex pattern, 
 like the rails in a city switchyard. She picked out 
 the track of the one motor car that had been through 
 here recently. It was marked with the swastika tread 
 of the rear tires. That track was her friend; she 
 knew and loved the driver of a car she had never seen 
 in her life. 
 
 She was very tired. She wondered if she might 
 not stop for a moment. Then she came to an up-slope. 
 The car faltered; felt indecisive beneath her. She 
 
6 FREE AIR 
 
 jabbed down the accelerator. Her hands pushed at 
 the steering wheel as though she were pushing the 
 car. The engine picked up, sulkily kept going. To 
 the eye, there was merely a rise in the rolling ground, 
 but to her anxiety it was a mountain up which she — 
 not the engine, but herself — pulled this bulky mass, 
 till she had reached the top, and was safe again — for a 
 second. Still there was no visible end of the mud. 
 
 In alarm she thought, " How long does it last ? I 
 can't keep this up. I — Oh ! " 
 
 The guiding tread of the previous car was suddenly 
 lost in a mass of heaving, bubble-scattered mud, like 
 a batter of black dough. She fairly picked up the car, 
 and flung it into that welter, through it, and back into 
 the reappearing swastika-marked trail. 
 
 Her father spoke : " You're biting your lips. They'll 
 bleed, if you don't look out. Better stop and rest," 
 
 " Can't ! No bottom to this mud. Once stop and 
 lose momentum — stuck for keeps ! " 
 
 She had ten more minutes of it before she reached 
 a combination of bridge and culvert, with a plank plat- 
 form above a big tile drain. With this solid plank 
 bottom, she could stop. Silence came roaring down as 
 she turned the switch. The bubbling water in the 
 radiator steamed about the cap. Claire was conscious 
 of tautness of the cords of her neck in front; of a pain 
 at the base of her brain. Her father glanced at her 
 curiously. " I must be a wreck. I'm sure my hair 
 
FREE AIR 7 
 
 is frightful," she thought, but forgot it as she looked 
 at him. His face was unusually pale. In the tumult 
 of activity he had been betrayed into letting the old 
 despondent look blur his eyes and sag his mouth. 
 " Must get on," she determined. 
 
 Claire was dainty of habit. She detested untwisted 
 hair, ripped gloves, muddy shoes. Hesitant as a cat 
 by a puddle, she stepped down on the bridge. Even on 
 these planks, the mud was three inches thick. It 
 squidged about her low, spatted shoes. " Eeh ! " she 
 squeaked. 
 
 She tiptoed to the tool-box and took out a folding 
 canvas bucket. She edged down to the trickling stream 
 below. She was miserably conscious of a pastoral 
 scene all gone to mildew — cows beneath willows by 
 the creek, milkweeds dripping, dried mullein weed 
 stalks no longer dry. The bank of the stream was so 
 slippery that she shot down two feet, and nearly went 
 sprawling. Her knee did touch the bank, and the 
 skirt of her gray sports-suit showed a smear of yellow 
 earth. 
 
 In less than two miles the racing motor had used 
 up so much water that she had to make four trips to 
 the creek before she had filled the radiator. When she 
 had climbed back on the running-board she glared 
 down at spats and shoes turned into gray lumps. She 
 was not tearful. She was angry. 
 
 " Idiot ! Ought to have put on my rubbers. Well 
 
8 FREE AIR 
 
 — too late now," she observed, as she started the 
 engine. 
 
 She again followed the swastika tread. To avoid 
 a hole in the road ahead, the unknown driver had 
 swung over to the side of the road, and taken to the 
 intensely black earth of the edge of an unfenced corn- 
 field. Flashing at Claire came the sight of a deep, 
 water-filled hole, scattered straw and brush, debris of 
 a battlefield, which made her gaspingly realize that her 
 swastikad leader had been stuck and — 
 
 And instantly her own car was stuck. 
 
 She had had to put the car at that hole. It dropped, 
 far down, and it stayed down. The engine stalled. 
 She started it, but the back wheels spun merrily round 
 and round, without traction. She did not make one 
 inch. When she again killed the blatting motor, she 
 let it stay dead. She peered at her father. 
 
 He was not a father, just now, but a passenger try- 
 ing not to irritate the driver. He smiled in a waxy 
 way, and said, " Hard luck ! Well, you did the best 
 you could. The other hole, there in the road, would 
 have been just as bad. You're a fine driver, dolly.'" 
 
 Her smile was warm and real. " No. I'm a fool. 
 You told me to put on chains. I didn't. I deserve it." 
 
 " Well, anyway, most men would be cussing. You 
 acquire merit by not beating me. I believe that's 
 done, in moments like this. If you'd like, I'll get out 
 and crawl around in the mud, and play turtle for ypu.'" 
 
FREE AIR 9 
 
 " No. I'm quite all right. I did feel frightfully 
 strong-minded as long as there was any use of it. It 
 kept me going. But now I might just as well be 
 cheerful, because we're stuck, and we're probably going 
 to stay stuck for the rest of this care-free summer 
 day." 
 
 The weariness of the long strain caught her, all at 
 once. She slipped forward, sat huddled, her knees 
 crossed under the edge of the steering wheel, her 
 hands falling beside her, one of them making a faint 
 brushing sound as it slid down the upholstery. Her 
 eyes closed; as her head drooped farther, she fancied 
 she could hear the vertebrae click in her tense neck. 
 
 Her father was silent, a misty figure in a lap-robe. 
 The rain streaked the mica lights in the side-curtains. 
 A distant train whistled desolately across the sodden 
 fields. The inside of the car smelled musty. The 
 quiet was like a blanket over the ears. Claire was in 
 a hazy drowse. She felt that she could never drive 
 again. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 CLAIRE ESCAPES FROM RESPECTABILITY 
 
 CLAIRE BOLTWOOD lived on the Heights, 
 Brooklyn. Persons from New York and other 
 parts of the Middlewest have been known to believe 
 that Brooklyn is somehow humorous. In newspaper 
 jokes and vaudeville it is so presented that people 
 who are willing to take their philosophy from those 
 sources believe that the leading citizens of Brooklyn 
 are all deacons, undertakers, and obstetricians. The 
 fact is that North Washington Square, at its reddest 
 and whitest and • f anlightedest, Gramercy Park at its 
 most ivied, are not so aristocratic as the section of 
 Brooklyn called the Heights. Here preached Henry 
 Ward Beecher. Here, in mansions like mausoleums, 
 OH the ridge above docks where the good ships came 
 sailing in from Sourabaya and Singapore, ruled the 
 lords of a thousand sails. And still is it a place of 
 wealth too solid to emulate the nimble self-advertis- 
 ing of Fifth Avenue. Here dwell the fifth-generation 
 possessors of blocks of foundries and shipyards. 
 Here, in a big brick house of much dignity, much 
 ugliness, and much conservatory, lived Claire Bolt- 
 wood,, with her widower father. 
 
 Henry B. Boltwood was vice-president of a firm 
 
FREE AIR II 
 
 dealing in railway supplies. He was neither wealthy 
 nor at all poor. Every summer, despite Claire's deli- 
 cate hints, they took the same cottage on the Jersey 
 Coast, and Mr. Boltwood came down for Sunday. 
 Qaire had gone to a good school out of Philadelphia, 
 on the Main Line. She was used to gracious leisure, 
 attractive uselessness, nut-center chocolates, and a 
 certain wonder as to why she was alive. 
 
 She wanted to travel, but her father could not get 
 away. He consistently spent his days in overwork- 
 ing, and his evenings in wishing he hadn't overworked. 
 He was attractive, fresh, pink-cheeked, white-mus- 
 tached, and nerve-twitching with years of detail. 
 
 Claire's ambition had once been babies and a solid 
 husband, but as various young males of the species 
 appeared before her, sang their mating songs and 
 preened their newly dry-cleaned plumage, she found 
 that the trouble with solid young men was that they 
 were solid. Though she liked to dance, the " dancing 
 men " bored her. And she did not understand the 
 district's quota of intellectuals very well; she was 
 good at listening to symphony concerts, but she never 
 had much luck in discussing the cleverness of the 
 wood winds in taking up the main motif. It is history 
 that she refused a master of arts with an old violin, 
 a good taste in ties, and an income of eight thousand. 
 
 The only man who disturbed her was Geoffrey 
 Saxton, known throughout the interwoven sets of 
 
12 FREE AIR 
 
 Brooklyn Heights as " Jeff." Jeff Saxton was thirty- 
 nine to Claire's twenty-three. He was clean and 
 busy; he had no signs of vice or humor. Especially 
 for Jeff must have been invented the symbolic morn- 
 ing coat, the unwrinkable gray trousers, and the moral 
 rimless spectacles. He was a graduate of a nice col- 
 lege, and he had a nice tenor and a nice family and 
 nice hands and he was nicely successful in New York 
 copper dealing. When he was asked questions by 
 people who were impertinent, clever, or poor, Jeff 
 looked them over coldly before he answered, and often 
 they felt so uncomfortable that he didn't have to 
 answer. 
 
 The boys of Claire's own age, not long out of Yale 
 and Princeton, doing well in business and jumping for 
 their evening clothes daily at six-thirty, light o' loves 
 and admirers of athletic heroes, these lads Claire 
 found pleasant, but hard to tell apart. She didn't 
 have to tell Jeff Saxton apart. He did his own telling. 
 Jeff called — not too often. He sang — not too senti- 
 mentally. He took her father and herself to the 
 theater — not too lavishly. He told Claire — in a voice 
 not too serious — that she was his helmed Athena, his 
 rose of all the world. He informed her of his sub- 
 stantial position — not too obviously. And he was so 
 everlastingly, firmly, quietly, politely, immovably 
 always there. 
 
 She watched the hulk of marriage drifting down 
 
FREE AIR 13 
 
 on her frail speed-boat of aspiration, and steered in 
 desperate circles. 
 
 Then her father got the nervous prostration he had 
 richly earned. The doctor ordered rest. Claire took 
 him in charge. He didn't want to travel. Certainly 
 he didn't want the shore or the Adirondacks. As 
 there was a branch of his company in Minneapolis, she 
 lired him that far away. 
 
 Being rootedly of Brooklyn Heights, Claire didn't 
 know much about the West. She thought that Mil- 
 waukee was the capital of Minnesota. She was not so 
 uninformed as some of her friends, however. She had 
 heard that in Dakota wheat was to be viewed in vast 
 tracts — maybe a hundred acres. 
 
 Mr. Boltwood could not be coaxed to play with the 
 people to whom his Minneapolis representative intro- 
 duced him. He was overworking again, and perfectly 
 happy. He was hoping to find something wrong with 
 the branch house. Claire tried to tempt him out cj 
 the lakes. She failed. His nerve-fuse burnt out the 
 second time, with much fireworks. 
 
 Claire had often managed her circle of girls, but it 
 had never occurred to her to manage her executive 
 father save by indirect and pretty teasing. Now, in 
 conspiracy with the doctor, she bullied her father. 
 He saw gray death waiting as alternative, and he was 
 meek. He agreed to everything. He consented to 
 drive with her across two thousand miles of plains 
 
14 FREE AIR 
 
 and mountains to Seattle, to drop in for a call on their 
 cousins, the Eugene Gilsons. 
 
 Back East they had a chauffeur and two cars — the 
 limousine, and the Gomez-Deperdussin roadster, 
 Claire's beloved. It would, she believed, be more of a 
 change from everything that might whisper to Mr. 
 Boltwood of the control of men, not to take a chauf- 
 feur. Her father never drove, but she could, she in- 
 sisted. His easy agreeing was pathetic. He watched 
 her with spaniel eyes. They had the Gomez roadster 
 shipped to them from New York. 
 
 On a July morning, they started out of Minneapolis 
 in a mist, and as it has been hinted, they stopped sixty 
 miles northward, in a rain, also in much gumbo. Ap- 
 parently their nearest approach to the Pacific Ocean 
 would be this oceanically moist edge of a cornfield, 
 between Schoenstrom and Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. 
 
 Claire roused from her damp doze and sighed, 
 " Well, I must get busy and get the car out of this." 
 
 " Don't you think you'd better get somebody to 
 help us?" 
 
 "But get who?" 
 
 "Whom!" 
 
 " No ! It's just ' who,' when you're in the mud. 
 Njo. One of the good things about an adventure like 
 this is that I must do things for myself. I've always 
 had people to do things for me. Maids and nice 
 
FREE AIR 15 
 
 teachers and you, old darling! I suppose it's made 
 me soft. Soft — I would like a soft davenport and 
 a novel and a pound of almond-brittle, and get all sick, 
 and not feel so beastly virile as I do just now. 
 But " 
 
 She turned up the collar of her gray tweed coat, 
 painfully climbed out — the muscles of her back rack- 
 ing — and examined the state of the rear wheels. 
 They were buried to the axle; in front of them the 
 mud bulked in solid, shiny blackness. She took out 
 her jack and chains. It was too late. There was no 
 room to get the jack under the axle. She remembered 
 from the narratives of motoring friends that brush 
 in mud gave a firmer surface for the wheels to climb 
 upon. 
 
 She also remembered how jolly and agreeably 
 heroic the accounts of their mishaps had sounded — a 
 week after they were over. 
 
 She waded down the road toward an old wood-lot. 
 At first she tried to keep dry, but she gave it up, and 
 there was pleasure in being defiantly dirty. She 
 tramped straight through puddles; she wallowed in 
 mud. In the wood-lot was long grass which soaked 
 her stockings till her ankles felt itchy. Claire had 
 never expected to be so very intimate with a brush- 
 pile. She became so. As though she were a pioneer 
 woman who had been toiling here for years, she came 
 to know the brush stick by stick — ^the long valuable 
 
i6 FREE AIR 
 
 branch that she could never quite get out from under 
 the others; the thorny bough that pricked her hands 
 every time she tried to reach the curious bundle of 
 switches. 
 
 Seven trips she made, carrying armfuls of twigs 
 and solemnly dragging large boughs behind her. She 
 patted them down in front of all four wheels. Her 
 crisp, hands looked like the paws of a three-year-old 
 boy making a mud fort. Her nails hurt from the mud 
 wedged beneath them. Her mud-caked shoes were 
 heavy to lift. It was with exquisite self-approval that 
 she sat on the running-board, scraped a car-load of 
 lignite off her soles, climbed back into the car, punched 
 the starter. 
 
 The car stirred, crept forward one inch, and set- 
 tled back — one inch. The second time it heaved en- 
 couragingly but did not make quite so much headway. 
 Then Claire did sob. 
 
 She rubbed her cheek against the comfortable, 
 rough, heather-smelling shoulder of her father's coat, 
 while he patted her and smiled, " Good girl ! I better 
 get out and help." 
 
 She sat straight, shook her head. " Nope. Til do 
 it. And I'm not going to insist on being heroic any 
 longer. I'll get a farmer to pull us out." 
 
 As she let herself down into the ooze, she reflected 
 that all farmers have hearts of gold, anatomical 
 phenomena never found among the snobs and hirelings 
 
FREE AIR 17 
 
 of New York. The nearest heart of gold was pre- 
 sumably beating warmly in the house a quarter of a 
 mile ahead. 
 
 She came up a muddy lane to a muddy farmyard, 
 with a muddy cur yapping at her wet legs, and geese 
 hissing in a pool of purest mud serene. The house 
 was small and rather old. It may have been painted 
 once. The barn was large and new. It had been 
 painted very much, and in a blinding red with white 
 trimmings. There was no brass plate on the house, 
 but on the barn, in huge white letters, was the legend, 
 "Adolph Zolzac, 19 13." 
 
 She climbed by log steps to a narrow frame back 
 porch littered with parts of a broken cream-separator. 
 She told herself that she was simple and friendly in 
 going to the back door instead of the front, and it was 
 with gaiety that she knocked on the ill-jointed screen 
 door, which flapped dismally in response. 
 
 " Ja?" from within. 
 
 She rapped again. 
 
 " Hinein!" 
 
 She opened the door on a kitchen, the highlight of 
 which was a table heaped with dishes of dumplings 
 and salt pork. A shirt-sleeved man, all covered with 
 mustache and calm, sat by the table, and he kept right 
 on sitting as he inquired : 
 
 "Veil?" 
 
 " My car — ^my automobile — has been stuck in the 
 
l8 FREE AIR 
 
 mud. S bad driver, I'm afraid! I wonder if you 
 would be so good as to " 
 
 " I usually get free dollars, but I dunno as I vant 
 to do it for less than four. Today I ain'd feelin' very 
 goot," grumbled the golden-hearted. 
 
 Claire was aware that a woman whom she had not 
 noticed — so much smaller than the dumplings, so much 
 less vigorous than the salt pork was she — was speak- 
 ing : " Aber, papa, dot's a shame you sharge de poor 
 young lady dot, when she drive by sei self. Vot she 
 t'ink of de Sherman people? " 
 
 The farmer merely grunted. To Claire, " Yuh, 
 four dollars. Dot's what I usually charge sometimes." 
 
 " Usually ? Do you mean to say that you leave 
 that hole there in the road right along — that people 
 keep on trying to avoid it and get stuck as I was? 
 Oh! If I were an official " 
 
 " Veil, I dunno, I don't guess I run my place to 
 suit you smart alecks " 
 
 " Papa ! How you talk on the young lady ! Make 
 shame ! " 
 
 " — from the city. If you don't like it, you stay 
 hei Mineapolis! I haul you out for free dollars and 
 a half. Everybody pay dot. Last mont' I make forty- 
 five dollars. They vos all glad to pay. They say I 
 help them fine. I don't see vot you're kickin' about! 
 Oh, these vimmins ! " 
 
 " If s blackmail ! I wouldn't pay it, if it weren't 
 
FREE AIR 19 
 
 for my father sitting waiting out there. But— go 
 ahead. Hurry ! " 
 
 She sat tapping her toe while Zolzac completed the 
 stertorous task of hogging the dumpHngs, then 
 stretched, yawned, scratched, and covered his merely 
 dirty garments with overalls that were apparently 
 woven of processed mud. When he had gone to the 
 barn for his team, his wife came to Claire. On her 
 drained face were the easy tears of the slave women. 
 
 " Oh, miss, I don't know vot I should do. My boys 
 go on the public school, and they speak American just 
 so goot as you. Oh, I vant man lets me luff America. 
 But papa he says it is an Unsinn; you got the money, 
 he says, nobody should care if you are American or 
 Old Country people. I should vish I could ride once 
 in an automobile ! But — I am so 'shamed, so 'shamed 
 that I must sit and see my Mann make this. Forty 
 years I been married to him, and pretty soon I 
 die " 
 
 Claire patted her hand. There was nothing to say 
 to tragedy that had outlived hope. 
 
 Adolph Zolzac clumped out to the highroad behind 
 his vast, rolling-flanked horses — so much cleaner and 
 better fed than his wisp of a wife. Claire followed 
 him, and in her heart she committed murder and was 
 glad of it. While Mr. Boltvvood looked out with mild 
 wonder at Claire's new friend, Zolzac hitched his team 
 to the axle. It did not seem possible that two horses 
 
20 FREE AIR 
 
 could pull out the car where seventy horsepower had 
 fainted. But, easily, yawning and thinking about din- 
 ner, the horses drew the wheels up on the mud-bank, 
 
 out of the hole and 
 
 The harness broke, with a flying mess of straps and 
 rope, and the car plumped with perfect exactness back 
 into its bed. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 A YOUNG MAN IN A RAINCOAT 
 
 " T T UH ! Such an auto ! Look, it break my har- 
 A X. ness a' ready! Two dollar that cost you to 
 mend it. De auto iss too heavy ! " stormed Zolzac. 
 
 " All right ! All right ! Only for heaven's sake — 
 go get another harness ! " Claire shrieked. 
 
 " Fife-fifty dot will be, in all." Zolzac grinned. 
 
 Claire was standing in front of him. She was 
 thinking of other drivers, poor people, in old cars, 
 who had been at the mercy of this golden-hearted one. 
 She stared past him, in the direction from which she 
 had come. Another motor was in sight. 
 
 It was a tin beetle of a car; that agile, cheerful, rut- 
 jumping model known as a " bug " ; with a home- 
 tacked, home-painted tin cowl and tail covering the 
 stripped chassis of a little cheap Teal car. The lone 
 driver wore an old black raincoat with an atrocious 
 corduroy collar, and a new plaid cap in the Harry 
 Lauder tartan. The bug skipped through mud where 
 the Boltwoods' Gomez had slogged and rolled. Its 
 pilot drove up behind her car, and leaped out. He 
 trotted forward to Claire and Zolzac. His eyes were 
 twenty-seven or eight, but his pink cheeks were twenty, 
 
 21 
 
22 FREE AIR 
 
 and when he smiled — shyly, radiantly — he was no age 
 at all, but eternal boy. Qaire had a blurred impres- 
 sion that she had seen him before, some place along 
 the road. 
 
 "Stuck?" he inquired, not very intelligently. 
 " How much is Adolph charging you? " 
 
 " He wants three-fifty, and his harness broke, and 
 he wants two dollars— — " 
 
 " Oh ! So he's still working that old gag ! I've 
 heard all about Adolph. He keeps that harness for 
 pulling out cars, and it always busts. The last time, 
 though, he only charged, six bits to get it mended. 
 Now let me reason with him." 
 
 The young man turned with vicious quickness, and 
 for the first time Claire heard pidgin German — 
 German as it is spoken between Americans who have 
 never learned it, and Germans who have forgotten it: 
 
 " Schon sex hundred times Ich hore all about the 
 way you been doing autos, Zolzac, you verfluchter 
 Schweinhund, and I'll set the sheriff on you " 
 
 " Dot ain'd true, maybe einmal die Woche kommt 
 somebody and Ich muss die Arbeit immer lassen und 
 in die Regen ausgehen, und seh' mal how die boots 
 sint mit mud covered, two dollars it don't pay for dis 
 boots " 
 
 " Now that's enough-plenty out of you, seien die 
 boots verdammt, and mach' doss du fort gehst — 
 muddy boots, hell ! — ^put mal ein egg in di^ boots and 
 
FREE AIR 23 
 
 beat it, verleicht maybe I'll by golly arrest you my- 
 self, weiss du! I'm a special deputy sheriff." 
 
 The young man stood stockily. He seemed to 
 swell ar his somewhat muddy hand was shaken directly 
 at, uncer, and about the circumference of, Adolph 
 Zolzac's hairy nose. The farmer was stronger, but 
 he retreated. He took up the reins. He whined, 
 " Don't I get nothing I break de harness ? " 
 
 " Sure. You get ten — ^years ! And you get out ! " 
 
 From thirty yards up the road, Zolzac flung back, 
 " You t'ink you're pretty damn smart ! " That was 
 his last serious reprisal. 
 
 Clumsily, as one not used to it, the young man 
 lifted his cap to Claire, showing straight, wiry, rope- 
 colored hair, brushed straight back from a rather fine 
 forehead. " Gee, I was sorry to have to swear and 
 holler like that, but it's all Adolph understands. 
 Please don't think there's many of the folks around 
 here like him. They say he's the meanest man in the 
 county." 
 
 " I'm immensely grateful to you, but — do you know 
 much about motors? How can I get out of this 
 mud?" 
 
 She was surprised to see the youngster blush. His 
 clear skin flooded. His engaging smile came again, 
 and he hesitated, " Let me pull you out." 
 
 She looked from her hulking car to his mechanical 
 flea. 
 
24 FREE AIR 
 
 He answered the look : " I can do it all right. I'm 
 used to the gumbo — regular mud-hen. Just add my 
 power to yours. Have you a tow-rope? " 
 
 " No. I never thought of bringing one." 
 
 " I'll get mine." 
 
 She walked with him back toward his bug. It 
 lacked not only top and side-curtains, but even wind- 
 shield and running-board. It was a toy — a card-board 
 box on tooth-pick axles. Strapped to the bulging back 
 was a wicker suitcase partly covered by tarpaulin. 
 From the seat peered a little furry face. 
 
 "A cat?" she exclaimed, as he came up with a 
 wire rope, extracted from the tin back. 
 
 " Yes. She's the captain of the boat. I'm just the 
 engineer." 
 
 "What is her name?" 
 
 Before he answered the young man strode ahead to 
 the front of her car, Claire obediently trotting after 
 him. He stooped to look at her front axle. He 
 raised his head, glanced at her, and he was blushing 
 again. 
 
 " Her name is Vere de Vere ! " he confessed. Then 
 he fled back to his bug. He drove it in front of the 
 Gomez-Dep. The hole in the road itself was as deep 
 as the one on the edge of the cornfield, where she 
 was stuck, but he charged it. She was fascinated by 
 his skill. Where she wduld for a tenth of a second 
 have hesitated while choosing the best course, he 
 
FREE AIR 25 
 
 hurled the bug straight at the hole, plunged through 
 with sheets of glassy black water arching on either 
 side, then viciously twisted the car to the right, to 
 the left, and straight again, as he followed the tracks 
 with the solidest bottoms. 
 
 Strapped above the tiny angle-iron step which re- 
 placed his running-board was an old spade. He dug 
 channels in front of the four wheels of her car, so 
 that they might go up inclines, instead of pushing 
 against the straight walls of mud they had thrown up. 
 On these inclines he strewed the brush she had brought, 
 halting to ask, with head alertly lifted from his 
 stooped huddle in the mud, " Did you have to get this 
 brush yourself? " 
 
 "Yes. Horrid wet!" 
 
 lie merely shook his head in commiseration. 
 
 He fastened the tow-rope to the rear axle of his 
 car, to the front of hers. " Now will you be ready to 
 put on all your power as I begin to pull ? " he said 
 casually, rather respectfully. 
 
 When the struggling bug had pulled the wire rope 
 taut, she opened the throttle. The rope trembled. Her 
 car seemed to draw sullenly back. Then it came out — 
 out — really out, which is the most joyous sensation 
 any motorist shall ever know. In excitement over 
 actually moving again, as fast as any healthy young 
 snail, she drove on, on, the young man ahead grinning 
 back at her. Nor did she stop, nor he, till both cars 
 
26 FREE AIR 
 
 were safe on merely thick mud, a quarter of a mile 
 away. 
 
 She switched off the power — and suddenly she was 
 in a whirlwind of dizzy sickening tiredness. Even 
 in her abandonment to exhaustion she noticed that the 
 young man did not stare at her but, keeping his back 
 to her, removed the tow-rope, and stowed it away in 
 his bug. She wondered whether it was tact or yokelish 
 indifference. 
 
 Her father spoke for the first time since the Galahad 
 of the tin bug had come: " How much do you think 
 we ought to give this fellow ? " 
 
 Now of all the cosmic problems yet unsolved, not 
 cancer nor the future of poverty are the flustering 
 questions, but these twain: Which is worse, not to 
 wear evening clothes at a party at which you find 
 every one else dressed, or to come in evening clothes 
 to a house where, it proves, they are never worn? 
 And : Which is worse, not to tip when a tip has been 
 expected; or to tip, when the tip is an insult? 
 
 In discomfort of spirit and wetness of ankles Claire 
 shuddered, " Oh dear, I don't believe he expects us 
 to pay him. He seems like an awfully independeflt 
 person. Maybe we'd offend him if we offered -' 
 
 " The only reasonable thing to be offended at in this 
 vale of tears is not being offered money ! " 
 
 "Just the same- Oh dear, I'm so tired. But 
 
 good little Qaire will climb out and be diplomatic." 
 
FREE AIK 27 
 
 She pinched her forehead, to hold in her cracking 
 brain, and wabbled out into new scenes of mud and 
 wetness, but she came up to the young man with the 
 most rain-washed and careless of smiles. " Won't 
 you come back and meet my father? He's terribly 
 
 grateful to you — as I am. Atid may we You've 
 
 worked so hard, and about saved our lives. May I 
 pay you for that labor? We're really much in- 
 debted " 
 
 " Oh, it wasn't anything. Tickled to death if I 
 could help you." 
 
 He heartily shook hands with her father, and he 
 droned, " Pleased to meet you, Mr. Uh." 
 
 " Boltwood." 
 
 " Mr. Boltwood. My name is Milt — Milton Dag- 
 gett. See you have a New York license on your car. 
 We don't see but mighty few of those through here. 
 Glad I could help you." 
 
 "Ah yes, Mr. Daggett." Mr. Boltwood was un- 
 interestedly fumbling in his money pocket. Behind 
 Milt Daggett, Claire shook her head wildly, rattling 
 her hands as though she were playing castanets. Mr. 
 Boltwood shrugged. He did not understand. His 
 relations with young men in cheap raincoats were 
 entirely monetary. They did something for you, and 
 you paid them — preferably not too much — and they 
 ceased to be. Whereas Milt Daggett respectfully but 
 stolidly continued to be, and Mr. Henry Boltwood's 
 
28 FREE AIR 
 
 own daughter was halting the march of affairs by ask- 
 ing irrelevant questions : 
 
 " Didn't we see you back in — what was that village 
 we came through back about twelve miles ? " 
 
 " Schoenstrom ? " suggested Milt. 
 
 " Yes, I think that was it. Didn't we pass you or 
 something ? We stopped at a garage there, to change 
 a tire." 
 
 " I don't think so. I was in town, though, this 
 morning. Say, uh, did you and your father grab any 
 eats " 
 
 " I mean, did you get dinner there ? " 
 
 "No. I wish we had!" 
 
 " Well say, I didn't either, and — I'd be awfully glad 
 if you folks would have something to eat with me 
 now." 
 
 Claire tried to give him a smile, but the best she 
 could do was to lend him one. She could not associate 
 interesting food with Milt and his mud-slobbered, tin- 
 covered, dun-paitited Teal bug. He seemed satisfied 
 with her dubious grimace. By his suggestion they 
 drove ahead to a spot where the cars could be parked 
 on firm grass beneath oaks. On the way, Mr. Bolt- 
 wood lifted his voice in dismay. His touch of nervous 
 prostration had not made him queer or violent; he 
 retained a touching faith in good food. 
 
 " We might find some good little hotel and have 
 
FREE AIR 29 
 
 some chops and just some mushrooms and peas," 
 insisted the man from Brooklyn Heights. 
 
 " Oh, I don't suppose the country hotels are really 
 so awfully good," she speculated. "And look — that 
 nice funny boy. We couldn't hurt his feelings. He's 
 having so much fun out of being a Good Samaritan." 
 
 From the mysterious rounded back of his car Milt 
 Daggett drew a tiny stove, to be heated by a can of 
 solidified alcohol, a frying pan that was rather large 
 for dolls but rather small for square-fingered hands, 
 a jar of bacon, eggs in a bag, a coffee pot, a can of 
 condensed milk, and a litter of unsorted tin plates 
 and china cups. While, by his request, Claire scoured 
 the plates and cups, he made bacon and eggs and cof- 
 fee, the little stove in the bottom of his car sheltered 
 by the cook's bending over it. The smell of food made 
 Claire forgiving toward the fact that she was wet 
 through; that the rain continued to drizzle down her 
 neck. 
 
 He lifted his hand and demanded, "Take your 
 shoes off ! " 
 
 "Uh?" 
 
 He gulped. He stammered, " I mean — I mean your 
 shoes are soaked through. If you'll sit in the car, I'll 
 put your shoes up by the engine. It's pretty well 
 heated from racing it in the mud. You can get your 
 stockings dry under the cowl." 
 
 She was amused by the elaborateness with which he 
 
30 FREE AIR 
 
 didn't glance at her while she took off her low shoes 
 and slipped her quite too thin black; stockings under 
 the protecting tin cowl. She reflected, " He has such 
 a nice, awkward gentleness. But such bad taste! 
 They're really quite good ankles. Apparently ankles 
 are not done, in Teal bug circles. His sisters don't 
 even have limbs. But do fairies have sisters? He is 
 a fairy. When I'm out of the mud he'll turn his rain- 
 coat into a pair of lordly white wings, and vanish. 
 But what will become of the cat? " 
 
 Thus her tired brain, like a squirrel in a revolving 
 cage, while she sat primly and scraped at a clot of rust 
 on a tin plate and watched him put on the bacon and 
 eggs. Wondering if cats were used for this purpose 
 in the Daggett family, she put soaked, unhappy Vere 
 de Vere on her feet, to her own great comfort and the 
 cat's delight. It was an open car, and the rain still 
 rained, and a strange young man was a foot from her 
 tending the not very crackly fire, but rarely had Claire 
 felt so domestic. 
 
 Milt was apparently struggling to say something. 
 After several bobs of his head he ventured, " You're 
 so wet! I'd like for you to take my raincoat." 
 
 " No ! Really ! I'm already soaked through. You 
 keep dry." 
 
 He was unhappy about it. He plucked at a button 
 of the coat. She turned him from the subject. " I 
 hope Lady Vere de Vere is getting warm, too." 
 
FREE AIR 31 
 
 " Seems to be. She's kind of demanding. She 
 wanted a little car of her own, but I didn't think 
 she could keep up with me, not on a long 
 hike." 
 
 "A little car? With her paws on the tiny wheel? 
 Oh — sweet! Ate you going far, Mr. Daggett? " 
 
 " Yes, quite a ways. To Seattle, Washington." 
 
 " Oh, really ? Extraordinary. We're going there, 
 too." 
 
 "Honest? You driving all the way? Oh, no, of 
 course your father " 
 
 " No, he doesn't drive. By the way, I hope he isn't 
 too miserable back there." 
 
 " I'll be darned. Both of us going to Seattle. 
 That's what they call a coincidence, isn't it! Hope 
 I'll see you on the road, some time. But I don't sup- 
 pose I will. Once you're out of the mud, your Gomez 
 will simply lose my Teal." 
 
 " Not necessarily. You're the better driver. And 
 I shall take it easy. Are you going to stay long in 
 Seattle? " It was not merely a polite dinner-payment 
 question. She wondered; she could not place this 
 fresh-cheeked, unworldly young man so far from his 
 home. 
 
 " Why, I kind of hope Government railroad, 
 
 Alaska. I'm going to try to get in on that, somehow. 
 I've never been out of Minnesota in my life, but there's 
 couple mountains and oceans and things I thought I'd 
 
32 FREE AIR 
 
 like to see, so I just put my suitcase and Vere de Vere 
 in the machine, and started out. I burn distillate 
 instead of gas, so it doesn't cost much. If I ever hap- 
 pen to have five whole dollars, why, I might go on to 
 Japan!" 
 
 " That would be jolly." 
 
 " Though I s'pose I'd have to eat — ^what is it ? — 
 pickled fish? There's a woman from near my town 
 went to the Orient as a missionary. From what she 
 says, I guess all you need in Japan to make a house 
 is a bottle of mucilage and a couple of old newspapers 
 and some two-by-fours. And you can have the house 
 on a purple mountain, with cherry trees down below, 
 
 and " He put his clenched hand to his lips. His 
 
 head was bowed. " And the ocean ! Lord ! The 
 ocean! And we'll see it at Seattle. Bay, anyway. 
 And steamers there — just come from India! Huh! 
 Getting pretty darn poetic here ! Eggs are done." 
 
 The young man did not again wander into visions. 
 He was all briskness as he served her bacon and eggs, 
 took a plate of them to Mr. Boltwood in the Gomez, 
 gouged into his own. Having herself scoured the tin 
 plates, Claire was not repulsed by their naked tinni- 
 ness; and the coffee in the broken-handled china cup 
 was tolerable. Milt drank from the top of a vacuum 
 bottle. He was silent. Immediately after the lunch 
 he stowed the things away. Claire expected a drawn- 
 out, tact-demanding farewell, but he climbed into his 
 
FREE AIR 33 
 
 bug, said " Good-by, Miss Boltwood. Good luck!" 
 and was gone. 
 
 The rainy road was bleakly empty without him. 
 
 It did not seem possible that Claire's body could be 
 nagged into going on any longer. Her muscles were 
 relaxed, her nerves frayed. But the moment the 
 Gomez started, she discovered that magic change 
 which every long-distance motorist knows. Instantly 
 she was alert, seemingly able to drive forever. The 
 pilot's instinct ruled her; gave her tireless eyes and 
 sturdy hands. Surely she had never been weary; 
 never would be, so long as it was hers to keep the car 
 going. 
 
 She had driven perhaps six miles when she reached 
 a hamlet called St. Klopstock.' On the bedraggled 
 mud-and-shanty main street a man was loading 
 crushed rock into a truck. By him was a large person 
 in a prosperous raincoat, who stepped out, held up his 
 hand. Claire stopped. 
 
 " You the young lady that got stuck in that hole by 
 Adolph Zolzac's?" 
 
 " Yes. And Mr. Zolzac wasn't very nice about it." 
 
 " He's going to be just elegant about it, now, and 
 there ain't going to be any more hole. I think Adolph 
 has been keeping it muddy — throwing in soft dirt — 
 and he made a good and plenty lot out of pulling out 
 tourists. Bill and I are going down right now and 
 fill it up with stone. Milt Daggett come through here 
 
34 FREE AIR 
 
 — ^he's got a nerve, that fellow, but I did have to laugh 
 
 — he says to me, ' Barney ' This was just now. 
 
 He hasn't more than just drove out of town. He 
 said to me, ' Barney,' he says, ' you're the richest 
 man in this township, and the banker, and you got 
 a big car y'self, and you think you're one whale of 
 a political boss,' he says, ' and yet you let that Zolzac 
 maintain a private ocean, against the peace and damn 
 horrible inconvenience of the Commonwealth of Min- 
 nesota ' He's got a great line of talk, that fellow. 
 
 He told me how you got stuck — ^made me so ashamed 
 — I been to New York myself — and right away I got 
 Bill, and we're going down and hold a donation and 
 surprise party on Adolph and fill that hole." 
 
 " But won't Adolph dig it out again? " 
 
 The banker was puffy, but his eyes were of stone. 
 From the truck he took a shotgun. He drawled, " In 
 that case, the surprise party will include an elegant 
 wake." 
 
 " But how did Who is this extraordinary Milt 
 
 Daggett?" 
 
 " Him ? Oh, nobody 'specially. He's just a fellow 
 down here at Schoenstrom. But we all know him. 
 Goes to all the dances, thirty miles around. Thing 
 about him is : if he sees something wrong, h? picks out 
 some poor fellow like me, and says what he thinks." 
 
 Claire drove on. She was aware that she was look- 
 ing for Milt's bu^. It was not in sight. 
 
FREE AIR 35 
 
 " Father," she exclaimed, " do you realize that this 
 lad didn't tell us he was going to have the hole filled ? 
 Just did it. He frightens me. I'm afraid that when 
 we reach Gopher Prairie for the night, we'll find he 
 has engaged for us the suite that Prince Collars and 
 Cuffs once slept in." 
 
 " Hhhhmm," yawned her father. 
 
 " Curious young man. He said, ' Pleased to meet 
 you.' " 
 
 " Huuuuhhm ! Fresh air makes me so sleepy." 
 
 " And — Fooled you ! Got through that mudhole, 
 
 anyway! And he said Look! Fields stretch out 
 
 so here, and not a tree except the willow-groves round 
 those farmhouses. And he said ' Gee ' so many times, 
 
 and ' dinner ' for the noon meal. And his nails 
 
 No, I suppose he really is just a farm youngster." 
 
 Mr. Boltwood did not answer. His machine-finish 
 smile indicated an enormous lack of interest in young 
 men in Teal bugs. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 A ROOM WITHOUT 
 
 GOPHER PRAIRIE has all of five thousand 
 people. Its commercial club asserts that it has 
 at least a thousand more population and an infinitely 
 better band than the ridiculously envious neighboring 
 town of Joralemon. But there were few signs that 
 a suite had been engaged for the Boltwoods, or that 
 Prince Collars and Cuffs had on his royal tour of 
 America spent much time in Gopher Prairie. Claire 
 reached it somewhat before seven. She gaped at it in 
 a hazy way. Though this was her first prairie town 
 for a considerable stay, she could not pump up interest. 
 
 The state of mind of the touring motorist entering 
 a strange place at night is as peculiar and definite as 
 that of a prospector. It is compounded of gratitude 
 at having got safely in; of perception of a new town, 
 yet with all eagerness about new things dulled by 
 weariness; of hope that there is going to be a good 
 hotel, but small expectation — and absolutely no prob- 
 ability — that there really will be one. 
 
 Claire had only a blotched impression of peaked 
 wooden buildings and squatty brick stores with faded 
 awnings; of a red grain elevator and a crouching sta- 
 tion and a lumberyard; then of the hopelessly muddy 
 
 36 
 
FREE AIR 37 
 
 road leading on again into the country. She felt that 
 if she didn't stop at once, she would miss the town 
 entirely. The driving-instinct sustained her, made 
 her take corners sharply, spot a garage, send the 
 Gomez whirling in on the cement floor. 
 
 The garage attendant looked at her and yawned. 
 
 "Where do you want the car?" Claire asked 
 sharply. 
 
 " Oh, stick it in that stall," grunted the man, and 
 turned his back. 
 
 Claire glowered at him. She thought of a good 
 line about rudeness. But — oh, she was too tired to 
 fuss. She tried to run the car into the empty stall, 
 which was not a stall, but a space, like a missing 
 tooth, between two cars, and so narrow that she was 
 afraid of crumpling the lordly fenders of the Gomez. 
 She ran down the floor, returned with a flourish, 
 thought she was going to back straight into the stall — 
 and found she wasn't. While her nerves shrieked, and 
 it did not seem possible that she could change gears, 
 she managed to get the Gomez behind a truck and 
 side-on to the stall. 
 
 " Go forward again, and cramp your wheel — 
 sharp ! " ordered the garage man. 
 
 Claire wanted to outline what she thought of him, 
 but she merely demanded, "Will you kindly drive 
 it in?" 
 
 " Why, sure. You bet," said the man casually. 
 
38 FREEAIR 
 
 His readiness ruined her inspired fury. She was 
 somewhat disappointed. 
 
 As she climbed out of the car and put a hand on 
 the smart bags strapped on a running-board, the accu- 
 mulated weariness struck her in a shock. She could 
 have driven on for hours, but the instant the car was 
 safe for the night, she went to pieces. Her ears rang, 
 her eyes were soaked in fire, her mouth was dry, the 
 back of her neck pinched. It was her father who took 
 the lead as they rambled to the one tolerable hotel in 
 the town. 
 
 In the hotel Claire was conscious of the ugliness 
 of the poison-green walls and brass cuspidors and 
 insurance calendars and bare floor of the office; con- 
 scious of the interesting scientific fact that all air had 
 been replaced by the essence of cigar smoke and cook- 
 ing cabbage; of the stares of the traveling men lounging 
 in bored lines; and of the lack of welcome on the 
 part of the night clerk, an oldish, bleached man with 
 whiskers instead of a collar. 
 
 She tried to be important : " Two rooms with bath, 
 please." 
 
 The bleached man stared at her, and shoved forward 
 the register and a pen clotted with ink. She signed. 
 He took the bags, led the way to the stairs. Anxiously 
 she asked, " Both rooms are with bath ? " 
 
 From the second step the night clerk looked down 
 at her as though she were a specimen that ought to 
 
FREE AIR 39 
 
 be pinned on the corks at once, and he said loudly, 
 " No, ma'am. Neither of 'em. Got no rooms vacant 
 with bawth, or bath either! Nbt but what we got 'em 
 in the house. This is an up-to-date [place. But one of 
 'm's took, and the other has kind of been out of order, 
 the last three-four months." 
 
 From the audience of drummers below, a delicate 
 giggle. 
 
 Claire was too angry to answer. And too tired. 
 When, after miles of stairs, leagues of stuffy hall, she 
 readied her coop, with its iron bed so loose-jointed 
 that it rattled to a breath, its bureau with a list to 
 port, and its anemic rocking-chair, she dropped on the 
 bed, panting, her eyes closed but still brimming with 
 fire. It did not seem that she could ever move again. 
 She felt chloroformed. She couldn't even coax her- 
 self of? the bed, to see if her father was any better off 
 in the next room. 
 
 She was certain that she was not going to drive to 
 Seattle. She wasn't going to drive anywhere! She 
 was going to freight the car back to Minneapolis, and 
 herself go back by train — Pullman ! — drawing-room ! 
 
 But for the thought of her father she would have 
 fallen asleep, in her drenched tweeds. When she did 
 force the energy to rise, she had to support herself 
 by the bureau, by the foot of the bed, as she moved 
 about the room, hanging up the wet suit, rubbing 
 herself with a slippery towel, putting on a dark silk 
 
40 FREE AIR 
 
 frock and pumps. She found her father sitting mo- 
 tionless in his room, staring at the wall. She made 
 herself laugh at him for his gloomy emptiness. She 
 paraded down the hall with him. 
 
 As they reached the foot of the stairs, the old 
 one, the night clerk leaned across the desk and, in a 
 voice that took the whole office into the conversation, 
 quizzed, "Come from New York, eh? Well, you're 
 quite a ways from home." 
 
 Claire nodded. She felt shyer before these solemnly 
 staring traveling men than she ever had in a box at 
 the opera. At the double door of the dining-room, 
 from which the cabbage smell steamed with a lusti- 
 ness undiminished by the sad passing of its youth, a 
 man, one of the average-sized, average-mustached, 
 average business-suited, average-brown-haired men 
 who can never be remembered, stopped the Boltwoods 
 and hawed, " Saw you coming into town. You've got 
 a New York license?" 
 
 She couldn't deny it. 
 
 " Quite a ways from home, aren't you? " 
 
 She had to admit it. 
 
 She was escorted by a bouncing, black-eyed waitress 
 to a table for four. The next table was a long one, 
 at which seven traveling men, or local business men 
 whose wives were at the lake for the summer, ceased 
 trying to get nourishment out of the food, and gawped 
 at her. Before the Boltwoods were seated, the wait- 
 
FREE AIR 41 
 
 ress dabbed at non-existent spots on their napkins, 
 ignored a genuine crumb on the cloth in front of 
 Claire's plate, made motions at a cup and a formerly 
 plated fork, and bubbled, "Autoing through ? " 
 
 Claire fumbled for her chair, oozed into it, and 
 breathed, " Yes." 
 
 "Going far?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Where do you live?" 
 
 " New York." 
 
 " My ! You're quite a ways from home, aren't 
 you?" 
 
 " Apparently." 
 
 " Hamnegs roasbeef roaspork thapplesauce fry- 
 pickerel springlamintsauce." 
 
 " I — I beg your pardon." 
 
 The waitress repeated. 
 
 " I — oh — oh, bring us ham and eggs. Is that all 
 right, father?" 
 
 " Oh— no— well " 
 
 " You wanted same ? " the waitress inquired of Mr. 
 Boltwood. 
 
 He was intimidated. He said, " If you please," and 
 feebly pawed at a fork. 
 
 The waitress was instantly back with soup, and a 
 collection of china gathered by a man of much 
 travel, catholic interests, and no taste. One of the 
 plates alleged itself to belong to a hotel in Omaha. 
 
42 FREE AIR 
 
 She pushed a pitcher of condensed milk to the exact 
 spot where it would catch Mr. Boltwood's sleeve, 
 brushed the crumb from in front of Claire to a shelter 
 beneath the pink and warty sugar bowl, recovered a 
 toothpick which had been concealed behind her glow- 
 ing lips, picked for a while, gave it up, put her hands 
 on her hips, and addressed Claire: 
 
 " How far you going ? " 
 
 "To Seattle." 
 
 "Got any folks there?" 
 
 " Any Oh, yes, I suppose so." 
 
 " Going to stay there long? " 
 
 " Really We haven't decided." 
 
 " Come from New York, eh ? Quite a ways from 
 home, all right. Father in business there?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What's his line?" 
 
 "I beg pardon?" 
 
 "What's his line? Ouch! Jiminy, these shoes 
 pinch my feet. I used to could dance all night, but 
 I'm getting fat, I guess, ha ! ha ! Put on seven pounds 
 last month. Ouch ! Gee, they certainly do pinch my 
 toes. What business you say your father's in ? " 
 
 " I didn't say, but Oh, railroad." 
 
 "G. N. orN. P.?" 
 
 " I don't think I quite understand " 
 
 Mr. Boltwood interposed, " Are the ham and eggs 
 ready?" 
 
FREE AIR 43 
 
 " I'll beat it out and see." When she brought them, 
 she put a spoon in Claire's saucer of peas, and de- 
 manded, " Say, you don't wear that silk dress in the 
 auto, do you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I should think you'd put a pink sash on it. Seems 
 like it's kind of plain — it's a real pretty piece of goods, 
 though. A pink sash would be real pretty. You 
 dark-complected ladies always looks better for a touch 
 of color." 
 
 Then was Claire certain that the waitress was bait- 
 ing her, for the amusement of the men at the long 
 table. She exploded. Probably the waitress did not 
 know there had been an explosion when Claire looked 
 coldly up, raised her brows, looked down, and poked 
 the cold and salty slab of ham, for she was contin- 
 uing: 
 
 " A light-complected lady like me don't need so much 
 color, you notice my hair is black, but I'm light, really, 
 Pete Liverquist says I'm a blonde brunette, gee, he 
 certainly is killing that fellow, oh, he's a case, he sure 
 does like to hear himself talk, my! there's Old Man 
 Walters, he runs the telephone exchange here, I heard 
 he went down to St. Qoud on Number 2, but I guess 
 he couldn't of, he'll be yodeling for friend soup and 
 a couple slabs of moo, I better beat it, I'll say so, so 
 long." 
 
 Claire's comment was as acid as the pale beets 
 
44 FREE AIR 
 
 before her, as bitter as the peas, as hard as the lumps 
 in the watery mashed potatoes: 
 
 " I don't know whether the woman is insane or 
 ignorant. I wish I could tell whether she was trying 
 to make me angry for the benefit of those horrid un- 
 shaven men, or merely for her private edification." 
 
 " By me, dolly. So is this pie. Let's get some me- 
 dium to levitate us up to bed. Uh — uh I think 
 
 perhaps we'd better not try to drive clear to Seattle. 
 If we just went through to Montana? — or even just 
 to Bismarck?" 
 
 " Drive through with the hotels like this ? My 
 dear man, if we have one more such day, we stop 
 right there. I hope we get by the man at the desk. I 
 have a feeling he's lurking there, trying to think up 
 something insulting to say to us. Oh, my dear, I hope 
 you aren't as beastly tired as I am. My bones are hot 
 pokers." 
 
 The man at the desk got in only one cynical question, 
 " Driving far? " before Claire seized her father's arm 
 and started him upstairs. 
 
 For the first time since she had been ten — and in a 
 state of naughtiness immediately following a pro- 
 nounced state of grace induced by the pulpit oratory of 
 the new rector of St. Chrysostom's — she permitted 
 herself the luxury of not stopping to brush her teeth 
 before she went to bed. Her sleep was drugged — it 
 was not sleep, but an aching exhaustion of the body 
 
FREE AIR 4S 
 
 which did not prevent her mind from revisualizing 
 the road, going stupidly over the muddy stretches 
 and sharp comers, then becoming conscious of that 
 bed, the lump under her shoulder blades, the slope to 
 westward, and the creak that rose every time she 
 tossed. For at least fifteen minutes she lay awake 
 for hours. 
 
 Thus Claire Boltwood's first voyage into democracy. 
 
 It was not so much that the sun was shining, in the 
 morning, as that a ripple of fresh breeze came through 
 the window. She discovered that she again longed to 
 go on — keep going on — see new places, conquer new 
 roads. She didn't want all good road. She wanted 
 something to struggle against. She'd try it for one 
 more day. She was stiff as she crawled out of bed, 
 but a rub with cold water left her feeling that she 
 was stronger than she ever had been; that she was a 
 woman, not a dependent girl. Already, in the beating 
 prairie sun-glare, the wide main street of Gopher 
 Prairie was drying; the mud ruts flattening out. Be- 
 yond the town hovered the note of a meadow lark — 
 sunlight in sound. 
 
 "Oh, it's a sweet morning! Sweet! We will go 
 on ! I'm terribly excited ! " she laughed. 
 
 She found her father dressed. He did not know 
 whether or not he wanted to go on. " I seem to have 
 lost my grip on things. I used to be rather decisive. 
 But we'll try it one more day, if you like," he said. 
 
46 FREEAIR 
 
 When she had gaily marched him downstairs, she 
 suddenly and unhappily remembered the people she 
 would have to face, the gibing questions she would 
 have to answer. 
 
 The night clerk was still at the desk, as though he 
 had slept standing. He hailed them. "Well, well! 
 Up bright and early! Hope you folks slq)t well. 
 Beds aren't so good as they might be, but we're kind 
 of planning to get some new mattresses. But you get 
 pretty good air to sleep in. Hope you have a fine hike 
 today." 
 
 His voice was cordial; he was their old friend; 
 faithful watcher of their progress. Qaire found her- 
 self dimpling at him. 
 
 In the dining-room their inquisitional acquaintance, 
 the waitress, fairly ran to them. " Sit down, folks. 
 Waffles this morning. You want to stock up for your 
 drive. My, ain't it an elegant morning! I hope you 
 have a swell drive today ! " 
 
 " Why ! " Claire gasped, " why, they aren't rude. 
 They care — about people they never saw before. 
 That's why they ask questions! I never thought — I 
 never thought! There's people in the world who want 
 to know us without having looked us up in the Social 
 Register! I'm so ashamed! Not that the sunshine 
 changes my impression of this coffee. It's frightful ! 
 But that will improve. And the people — they were 
 being friendly, all the time. Oh, Henry B., young 
 
FREE AIR 47 
 
 Henry Boltwood, you and your godmother Qaire have 
 a lot to learn about the world ! " 
 
 As they came into the garage, their surly acquaint- 
 ance of the night before looked just as surly, but 
 Claire tried a boisterous " Good morning! " 
 
 "Mornin'! Going north? Better take the left- 
 hand road at Wakamin. Easier going. Drive your 
 car out for you ? " 
 
 As the car stood outside taking on gas, a man 
 flapped up, spelled out the New York license, looked 
 at Claire and her father, and inquired, " Quite a ways 
 from home, aren't you ? " 
 
 This time Qaire did not say " Yes ! " She experi- 
 mented with, " Yes, quite a ways." 
 
 " Well, hope you have a good trip. Good luck ! " 
 
 Claire leaned her head on her hand, thought hard. 
 " It's I who wasn't friendly," she propounded to her 
 father. " How much I've been losing. Though I still 
 refuse to like that coffee ! " 
 
 She noticed the sign on the air-hose of the garage — 
 " Free Air." 
 
 " There's our motto for the pilgrimage ! " she cried. 
 
 She knew the exaltation of starting out in the fresh 
 morning for places she had never seen, without the 
 bond of having to return at night. 
 
 Tlius Qaire's second voyage into democracy. 
 
 While she was starting the young man who had 
 pulled her out of the mud and given her lunch was 
 
48 FREE AIR 
 
 folding up the tarpaulin and blankets an which he had 
 slept beside his Teal bug, in the woods three miles 
 north of Gopher Prairie. To the high-well-born cat, 
 Vere de Vere, Milt Daggett mused aloud, " Your lady- 
 ship, as Shakespeare says, the man that gets cold feet 
 never wins the girl. And I'm scared, cat, clean 
 scared." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 RELEASE BRAKES— SHIFT TO THIRD 
 
 MILT DAGGETT had not been accurate in his 
 imphcation that he had not noticed Claire at a 
 garage in Schoenstrom. For one thing, he owned the 
 garage. 
 
 Milt was the most prosperous young man in the 
 village of Schoenstrom. Neither the village itself nor 
 the nearby Strom is really schoen. The entire busi- 
 ness district of Schoenstrom consists of Heinie Raus- 
 kukle's general store, which is brick; the Leipzig 
 House, which is frame ; the Old Home Poolroom and 
 Restaurant, which is of old logs concealed by a frame 
 sheathing; the farm-machinery agency, which is gal- 
 vanized iron, its roof like an enlarged washboard; 
 the church; the three saloons; and the Red Trail Ga- 
 rage, which is also, according to various signs, the 
 Agency for Teal Car Best at the Test, Stonewall Tire 
 Service Station, Sewing Machines and Binders Re- 
 paired, Dr. Hostrum the Veterinarian every Thursday, 
 Gas Today 27c. 
 
 The Red Trail Garage is of cement and tapestry 
 brick. In the office is a clean hardwood floor, a type- 
 writer, and a picture of Elsie Ferguson. The estab- 
 
 49 
 
50 FREE AIR 
 
 lishment has an automatic rim-stretcher, a wheel 
 jack, and a reputation for honesty. 
 
 The father of Milt Daggett was the Old Doctor, 
 born in Maine, coming to this frontier in the day 
 when Chippewas camped in your doOryard, and came 
 in to help themselves to coffee, which you made of 
 roasted corn. The Old Doctor bucked northwest bliz- 
 zards, read Dickens and Byron, pulled people through 
 typhoid, and left to Milt his shabby old medicine case 
 and thousands of dollars — in uncollectible accounts. 
 Mrs. Daggett had long since folded her crinkly hands 
 in quiet death. 
 
 Milt had covered the first two years of high school 
 by studying with the priest, and been sent to the city 
 of St. Cloud for the last two years. His father had 
 meant to send him to the state university. But Milt 
 had been born to a talent for machinery. At twelve he 
 had made a telephone that worked. At eighteen he 
 was engineer in the tiny flour mill in Schoenstrom. 
 At twenty-five, when Claire Boltwood chose to come 
 tearing through his life in a Gomez-Dep, Milt was the 
 owner, manager, bookkeeper, wrecking crew, ignition 
 expert, thoroughly competent bill-collector, and all but 
 one of the working force of the Red Trail Garage. 
 
 There were two factions in Schoenstrom : the retired 
 farmers who said that German was a good enough lan- 
 guage for anybody, and that taxes for schools and 
 sidewalks were yes something crazy; and the group 
 
FREE AIR 51 
 
 who stated that a pig-pen is a fine place, but only for 
 pigs. To this second, revolutionary wing belonged a 
 few of the first generation, most of the second, and 
 all of the third; and its leader was Milt Daggett. He 
 did not talk much, normally, but when he thought 
 things ought to be done, he was as annoying as a ma- 
 chine-gun test in the lot next to a Quaker meeting. 
 
 If there had been a war, Milt would probably have 
 been in it — rather casual, clearing his throat, reckon- 
 ing and guessing that maybe his men might try going 
 over and taking that hill . . . then taking it. 
 But all of this history concerns the year just before 
 America spoke to Germany; and in this town buried 
 among the cornfields and the wheat, men still thought 
 more about the price of grain than about the souls of 
 nations. 
 
 On the evening before Claire Boltwood left Minne- 
 apolis and adventured into democracy. Milt was in the 
 garage. He wore union overalls that were tan where 
 they were not grease-black ; a faded blue cotton shirt ; 
 and the crown of a derby, with the rim not too neatly 
 hacked off with a dull toad-stabber jack-knife. 
 
 Milt smiled at his assistant, Ben Sittka, and sug- 
 gested, " Well, wie geht 's mit the work, eh ? Like to 
 stay and get the prof's flivver out, so he can have it 
 in the morning?" 
 
 " You bet, boss." 
 
 " Getting to be quite a mechanic, Ben." 
 
52 FREE AIR 
 
 "111 say so!" 
 
 "If you get stuck, come yank me out of the Old 
 Home." 
 
 " Aw rats, boss. I'll finish it. You beat it." Ben 
 grinned at Milt adoringly. 
 
 Milt stripped off his overalls and derby-crown, and 
 washed his big, firm hands with gritty soft soap. He 
 cleaned his nails with a file which he carried in his 
 upper vest pocket in a red imitation morocco case 
 which contained a comb, a mirror, an indelible pencil, 
 and a note-book with the smudged pencil addresses of 
 five girls in St. Cloud, and a memorandum about 
 Rauskukle's car. 
 
 He put on a twisted brown tie, an old blue serge 
 suit, and a hat which, being old and shabby, had be* 
 come graceful. He ambled up the street. He couldn't 
 have ambled more than three blocks and have remained 
 on the street. Schoenstrom tended to leak off into jun- 
 gles of tall corn. 
 
 Two men waved at him, and one demanded, " Say, 
 Milt, is whisky good for the toothache ? What d' you 
 think! The doc said it didn't do any good. But then, 
 gosh, he's only just out of college." 
 
 " I guess he's right." 
 
 " Is that a fact I Well, I'll keep off it then." 
 
 Two stores farther on, a bulky farmer hailed, " Say, 
 Milt, should I get an ensilage cutter yet ? " 
 
 " Yuh," in the manner of a man who knows too 
 
FREE AIR 53 
 
 much to be cocksure about anything, " I don't know 
 but what I would, Julius." 
 
 "I guess I vill then." 
 
 Minnie Rauskukle, plump, hearty Minnie, heiress 
 to the general store, gave evidence by bridling and 
 straightening her pigeon-like body that she was aware 
 of Milt behind her. He did not speak to her. He 
 ducked into the door of the Old Home Poolroom and 
 Restaurant. 
 
 Milt ranged up to the short lunch counter, in front 
 of the pool table where two brick-necked farm young- 
 sters were furiously slamming balls and attacking 
 cigarettes. Loose-jointedly Milt climbed a loose- 
 jointed high stool and to the proprietor. Bill McGol- 
 wey, his best friend, he yawned, " You might poison 
 me with a hamburger and a slab of apple, Mac." 
 
 " I'll just do that little thing. Look kind of grouchy 
 tonight. Milt." 
 
 " Too much excitement in this burg. Saw three 
 people on the streets all simultaneously to-once." 
 
 "What's been eatin' you lately?" 
 
 "Me? Nothing. Only I do get tired of this me- 
 tropolis. One of these days I'm going to buck some 
 bigger place." 
 
 " Try Gopher Prairie maybe ? " suggested Mac, 
 through the hiss and steam of the frying hamburger 
 sandwich. 
 
 " Rats. Too small." 
 
54 FREE AIR 
 
 " Small ? Why, there's darn near five Aousand 
 people there ! " 
 
 " I know, but — I want to tackle some sure-nuff 
 city. Like Duluth or New York." 
 
 "Butwhat'dyoudo?" 
 
 " That's the devil of it. I don't know just what I 
 do want to do. I could always land soft in a garage, 
 but that's nothing new. Might hit Detroit, and learn 
 the motor-factory end." 
 
 " Aw, you're tWe limit, Milt. Always looking for 
 something new." 
 
 " That's the way to get on. The rest of this town 
 is afraid of new things. 'Member when I suggested 
 we all chip in on a dynamo with a gas engine and 
 have electric lights? The hicks almost died of nerv- 
 ousness." 
 
 " Yuh, that's true, but You stick here, Milt. 
 
 You and me will just nachly run this burg." 
 
 " I'll say ! Only Gosh, Mac, I would like to 
 
 go to a real show, once. And find out how radio 
 works. And see 'em put in a big suspension bridge ! " 
 
 Milt left the Old Home rather aimlessly. He told 
 himself that he positively would not go back and help 
 Ben Sittka get out the prof's car. So he went back 
 and helped Ben get out the prof's car, and drove the 
 same to the prof's. The prof, otherwise professor, 
 otherwise mister, James Martin Jones, B.A., and Mrs. 
 James Martin Jones welcomed him almost as noisily 
 
FREE AIR 55 
 
 as had Mac. They begged him to come in. With Mr. 
 Jones he discussed — no, ye Claires of Brooklyn 
 Heights, this garage man and this threadbare young 
 superintendent of a paintbare school, talking in a town 
 that was only a comma on the line, did not discuss 
 corn-growing, nor did they reckon to guess that by 
 heck the constabule was carryin' on with the Widdy 
 Perkins. They spoke of fish-culture, Elihu Root, the 
 spiritualistic evidences of immortality, government 
 ownership, self-starters for flivvers, and the stories 
 of Irvin Cobb. 
 
 Milt went home earlier than he wanted to. Because 
 Mr. Jones was the only man in town besides the priest 
 who read books, because Mrs. Jones was the only 
 woman who laughed about any topics other than chil- 
 dren and family sickness, because he wanted to go to 
 their house every night, Milt treasured his welcome as 
 a sacred thing, and kept himself from calling on them 
 more than once a week. 
 
 He stopped on his way to the garage to pet Emil 
 Baumschweiger's large gray cat, publicly known as 
 Rags, but to Milt and to the lady herself recognized 
 as the unfortunate Countess Vere de Vere — ^perhaps 
 the only person of noble ancestry and mysterious past 
 in Milt's acquaintance. The Baumschweigers did not 
 treat their animals well; Emil kicked the bay mare, 
 and threw pitchforks at Vere de Vere. Milt saluted 
 her and sympathized: 
 
S6 FREE AIR 
 
 "You have a punk time, don't you, countess? 
 Like to beat it to Minneapolis with me? " 
 
 The countess said that she did indeed have an ex- 
 traordinarily punk time, and she sang to Milt the 
 hymn of the little gods of the warm hearth. Then 
 Milt's evening dissipations were over. Schoenstrom 
 has movies only once a week. He sat in the office of 
 his garage ruffling through a weekly digest of events. 
 Milt read much, though not too easily. He had no 
 desire to be a poet, an Indo-Iranian etymologist, a lec- 
 turer to women's clubs, or the secretary of state. But 
 he did rouse to the marvels hinted in books and maga- 
 zines; to large crowds, the mechanism of submarines, 
 palm trees, gracious women. 
 
 He laid down the magazine. He stared at the wall. 
 He thought about nothing. He seemed to be fumbling 
 for something about which he could deliciously think 
 if he could but grasp it. Without quite visualizing 
 either wall or sea, he was yet recalling old dreams of a 
 moonlit wall by a warm stirring southern sea. If 
 there was a girl in the dream she was intangible as 
 the scent of the night. Presently he was asleep, a 
 not at all romantic figure, rather ludicrously tipped 
 to one side in his office chair, his large solid shoes up 
 on the desk. 
 
 He half woke, and filtered to what he called home — 
 one room in the cottage of an oldish woman who had 
 prejudices against the perilous night air. He was too 
 
FREE AIR 57 
 
 sleepy to go through any toilet save pulling off his 
 shoes, and achieving an unconvincing wash at the 
 little stand, whose crackly varnish was marked with 
 white rings from the toothbrush mug. 
 
 " I feel about due to pull off some fool stunt. Won- 
 der what it will be? " he complained, as he flopped on 
 the bed. 
 
 He was up at six, and at a quarter to seven was at 
 work in the garage. He spent a large part of the 
 morning in trying to prove to a customer that even a 
 Teal car, best at the test, would not give perfect service 
 if the customer persisted in forgetting to fill the oil- 
 well, the grease-cups, and the battery. 
 
 At three minutes after twelve Milt left the garage 
 to go to dinner. The fog of the morning had turned 
 to rain. McGolwey was not at the Old Home. Some- 
 times Mac got tired of serving meals, and for a day or 
 two he took to a pocket flask, and among his former 
 customers the cans of prepared meat at Rauskukle's 
 became popular. Milt found him standing under the 
 tin awning of the general store. He had a troubled 
 hope of keeping Mac from too long a vacation with 
 the pocket flask. But Mac was already red-eyed. He 
 seemtil only half to recognize Milt. 
 
 "Swell day!" said Milt. 
 
 "V bet." 
 
 " Road darn muddy." 
 
 " I should worry. Yea, bo', I'm feelin' good ! " 
 
58 FREE AIR 
 
 At eleven minutes past twelve a Gomez-Dep road- 
 ster appeared down the road, stopped at the garage. 
 To Milt it was as exciting as the appearance of a 
 comet to a watching astronomer. 
 
 "What kind of a car do you call that, Milt?" 
 asked a loafer. 
 
 " Gomez-Deperdussin." 
 
 " Never heard of it. Looks too heavy." 
 
 This was sacrilege. Milt stormed, " Why, you poor 
 tloof, it's one of the best cars in the world. Imported 
 from France. That looks like a special-made Ameri- 
 can body, though. Trouble with you fellows is, you're 
 always scared of anything that's new. Too — ^heavy! 
 Huh! Always wanted to see a Gomez — never have, 
 except in pictures. And I believe that's a New York 
 license. Let me at it!" 
 
 He forgot noon-hunger, and clumped through the 
 rain to the garage. He saw a girl step from the car. 
 He stopped, in the doorway of the Old Home, in un- 
 easy shyness. He told himself he didn't "know just 
 w'hat it is about her — she isn't so dam unusually 
 
 pretty and yet — gee Certainly isn't a girl to get 
 
 fresh with. Let^en take care of her. Like to talk 
 to her, and yet I'd be afraid if I opened my :"nouth, 
 I'd put my foot in it." 
 
 He was for the first time seeing a smart woman. 
 This dark, slender, fine-nerved girl, in her plain, rough, 
 closely-belted, gray suit, her small black Glengarry 
 
FREE AIR 59 
 
 cocked on one side of her smooth hair, her little kid 
 gloves, her veil, was as delicately adjusted as an aero- 
 plane engine. 
 
 Milt wanted to trumpet her exquisiteness to the 
 world, so he growled to a man standing beside him, 
 " Swell car. Nice-lookin' girl, kind of." 
 
 " Kind of skinny, though. I like 'em with some 
 meat on 'em," yawned the man. 
 
 No, Milt did not strike him to earth. He insisted 
 feebly, " Nice clothes she's got, though." 
 
 " Oh, not so muchamuch. I seen a woman come 
 through here yesterday that was swell, though — had 
 on a purple dress and white shoes and a hat big 's a 
 bushel." 
 
 " Well, I don't know, I kind of like those simple 
 things," apologized Milt. 
 
 He crept toward the garage. The girl was inside. 
 He inspected the slope-topped, patent-leather motor- 
 ing trunk on the rack at the rear of the Gomez-Dep. 
 He noticed a middle-aged man waiting in the car. 
 " Must be her father. Probably — maybe she isn't 
 married then." He could not get himself to shout at 
 the man, as he usually did. He entered the garage 
 office; from the inner door he peeped at the girl, who 
 was talking to his assistant about changing an inner 
 tube. 
 
 That Ben Sittka whom an hour ago he had cajoled 
 as a promising child he now admired for the sniffing 
 
6o FREE AIR 
 
 calmness with which he was demanding, " Want a red 
 or gray tube ? " 
 
 " Really, I don't know. Which is the better ? " The 
 girl's voice was curiously clear. 
 
 Milt passed Claire Boltwood as though he did not 
 see her; stood at the rear of the garage kicking at the 
 tires of a car, his back to her. Over and over he was 
 
 grumbling, "If I just knew one girl like that 
 
 Like a picture. Like — like a silver vase on a blue 
 cloth!" 
 
 Ben Sittka did not talk to the girl while he inserted 
 the tube in the spare casing. Only, in the triumphant 
 moment when the parted ends of the steel rim snapped 
 back together, he piped, " Going far ? " 
 
 " Yes, rather. To Seattle." 
 
 Milt stared at the cobweb-grayed window. " Now 
 I know what I was planning to do. I'm going to 
 Seattle," he said. 
 
 The girl was gone at twenty-nine minutes after 
 twelve. At twenty-nine and a half minutes after, 
 Milt remarked to Ben Sittka, " I'm going to take a 
 trip. Uh? Now don't ask questions. You take 
 charge of the garage until you hear from me. Get 
 somebody to help you. G'-by." 
 
 He drove his Teal bug out of the garage. At 
 thirty-two minutes after twelve he was in his room, 
 packing his wicker suitcase by the method of throwing 
 things in and stamping on the case till it closed. In 
 
FREE AIR 6i 
 
 it he had absolutely all of his toilet refinements and 
 wardrobe except the important portion already in use. 
 They consisted, according to faithful detailed report, 
 of four extra pairs of thick yellow and white cotton 
 socks; two shirts, five collars, five handkerchiefs; a 
 pair of surprisingly vain dancing pumps; high tan 
 laced boots; three suits of cheap cotton underclothes; 
 his Sunday suit, which was dead black in color, and 
 unimaginative in cut; four ties; a fagged toothbrush, 
 a comb and hairbrush, a razor, a strop, shaving soap 
 in, a mug; a not very clean towel; and nothing else 
 whatever. 
 
 To this he added his entire library and private pic- 
 ture gallery, consisting of Ivanhoe, Ben-Hur, his 
 father's copy of Byron, a wireless manual, and the 
 1916 edition of Motor Construction and Repairing: 
 the art collection, one colored Sunday supplement pic- 
 ture of a princess lunching in a Provenqe courtyard, 
 and a half-tone of Colonel Paul Beck landing in an 
 early military biplane. Under this last, in a pencil 
 scrawl now blurred to grayness. Milt had once writ- 
 ten, " This what 111 be aviator." 
 
 What he was to wear was a piercing trouble. Till 
 eleven minutes past twelve that day he had not cared. 
 People accepted his overalls at anything except a 
 dance, and at the dances he was the only one who 
 ware pumps. But in his discovery of Claire Bolt- 
 wood he had perceived that dressing is an art. Before 
 
62 FREE AIR 
 
 he had packed, he had unhappily pawed at the prized 
 black suit. It had become stupid. " Undertaker ! " 
 he growled. 
 
 With a shrug which indicated that he had nothing 
 else, he had exchanged his overalls for a tan flannel 
 shirt, black bow tie, thick pigskin shoes, and the suit 
 he had worn "the evening before, his best suit of two 
 years ago — baggy blue serge coat and trousers. He 
 could not know it, but they were surprisingly grace- 
 ful on his wiry, firm, white body. 
 
 In his pockets were a roll of bills and an unex- 
 pectedly good gold watch. For warmth he had a 
 winter ulster, an old-fashioned turtle-neck sweater, 
 and a raincoat heavy as tarpaulin. He plunged into 
 the raincoat, ran out, galloped to Rauskukle's store, 
 bought the most vehement cap in the place — a plaid 
 of cerise, orange, emerald green, ultramarine, and five 
 other guaranteed fashionable colors. He stocked up 
 with food for roadside camping. 
 
 In the humping tin-covered tail of the bug was a 
 good deal of room, and this he filled with motor 
 extras, a shotgun and shells, a pair of skates, and all 
 his camping kit as used on his annual duck-hunting 
 trip to Man Trap Lake. 
 
 " I'm a darned fool to take everything I own 
 but Might be gone a whole month," he reflected. 
 
 He had only one possession left — a check book, con- 
 cealed from the interested eye of his too maternal 
 
FREE AIR 63 
 
 landlady by sticking it under the stair carpet. This 
 he retrieved. It showed a balance of two hundred 
 dollars. There was ten dollars in the cash register in 
 the office, for Ben Sittka. The garage would, with the 
 mortgage deducted, be worth nearly two thousand. 
 This was his fortune. 
 
 He bolted into the kitchen and all in one shout he 
 informed his landlady, " Called out of town, li'l trip, 
 b'lieve I don't owe you an'thing, here's six dollars, two 
 weeks' notice, dunno just when I be back." 
 
 Before she could issue a questionnaire he was out 
 in the bug. He ran through town. At his friend 
 McGolwey, now loose-lipped and wabbly, sitting in 
 the rain on a pile of ties behind the railroad station, 
 he yelled, " So long, Mac. Take care yourself, old 
 hoss. Off on li'l trip." 
 
 He stopped in front of the " prof's," tooted till the 
 heads of the Joneses appeared at the window, waved 
 and shouted, " G'-by, folks. Coin' outa town." 
 
 Then, while freedom and the distant Pacific seemed 
 to rush at him over the hood, he whirled out of town. 
 It was two minutes to one — forty-seven minutes since 
 Claire Boltwood had entered Shoenstrom. 
 
 He stopped only once. His friend Lady Vere de 
 Vere was at the edge of town, on a scientific exploring 
 trip in the matter of ethnology and field mice. She 
 hailed him, " Mrwr? Me mrwr! " 
 
 " You don't say so ! " Milt answered in surprise. 
 
64 FREE AIR 
 
 " Well, if I promised to take you, I'll keep my word." 
 He vaulted out, tucked Vere de Vere into the seat, 
 protecting her from the rain with the tarpaulin winter 
 radiator-cover. 
 
 His rut-skipping car overtook the mud-walloping 
 Gomez-Dep in an hour, and pulled it out of the mud. 
 
 Before Milt slept that night, in his camp three miles 
 from Gopher Prairie, he went through religious rites. 
 
 " Girl like lier, she's darn particular about her looks. 
 I'm a sloppy hound. Used to be snappier about my 
 clothes when I was in high school. Getting lazy — 
 too much like Mac. Think of me sleeping in my 
 clothes last night ! " 
 
 " Mrwr ! " rebuked the cat, 
 
 "You're dead right. Fierce is the word. Nev' 
 will sleep in my duds again, puss. That is, when I 
 have a reg'lar human bed. Course camping, different. 
 
 But still Let's see all the funny things we can 
 
 do to us." 
 
 He shaved — two complete shaves, from lather to 
 towel. He brushed his hair. He sat down by a camp- 
 fire sheltered between two rocks, and fought his nails, 
 though they were discouragingly crammed with motor 
 grease. Throughout this interesting but quite painful 
 ceremony Milt kept up a conversation between him- 
 self as the World's Champion Dude, and his cat 
 as Vallay. But when there was nothing more to do, 
 and the fire was low, and Vere de Vere asleep in the 
 
FREE AIR 65 
 
 sleeve of the winter ulster, his bumbling voice slack- 
 ened; in something like agony he muttered: 
 
 " But oh, what's the use? I can't ever be anything 
 but a dub! Cleaning my nails, to make a hit with 
 a girl that's got hands like hers ! It's a long trail to 
 Seattle, but it's a darn sight longer one to being — 
 being — ^well, sophisticated. Oh! And incidentally, 
 what the deuce am I going to do in Seattle if I do get 
 there?" 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE LAND OF BILLOWING CLOUDS 
 
 EVER a tawny-beached ocean has the sweetness 
 of the prairie slew. Ripphng and blue, with 
 long grass up to its edge, a spot of dancing light set 
 in the miles of rustling wheat, it retains even in July, 
 on an afternoon of glare and brazen locusts, the fresh- 
 ness of a spring morning. A thousand slews, a hun- 
 dred lakes bordered with rippling barley or tinkling 
 bells of the flax, Claire passed. She had left the 
 occasional groves of oak and poplar and silver birch, 
 and come out on the treeless Great Plains. 
 
 She had learned to call the slews " pugholes," and 
 to watch for ducks at twilight. She had learned that 
 about the pugholes flutter choirs of crimson-winged 
 blackbirds; that the ugly brown birds squatting on 
 fence-rails were the divine- voiced meadow larks; that 
 among the humble cowbird citizens of the pastures 
 sometimes flaunted a scarlet tanager or an oriole; and 
 that no rose garden has the quaint and hardy beauty of 
 the Indian paint brushes and rag babies and orange 
 milkweed in the prickly, burnt-over grass between 
 roadside and railway line. 
 
 She had learned that what had seemed rudeness in 
 garage men and hotel clerks was often a resentful re- 
 
 66 
 
FREE AIR 67 
 
 flection of her own Eastern attitude that she was neces- 
 sarily superior to a race she had been trained to call 
 " common people." If she spoke up frankly, they 
 made her one of their own, and gave her companion- 
 able aid. 
 
 For two days of sunshine and drying mud she fol- 
 lowed a road flung straight across flat wheatlands, then 
 curving among low hills. Often there were no fences; 
 she was so intimately in among the grain that the 
 fenders of the car brushed wheat stalks, and she be- 
 came no stranger, but a part of all this vast-horizoned 
 land. She forgot that she was driving, as she let the 
 car creep on, while she was transported by Armadas 
 of clouds, prairie clouds, wisps of vapor like a ribbed 
 beach, or mounts of cumulus swelling to gold-washed 
 snowy peaks. 
 
 The friendliness of the bearing earth gave her a 
 calm that took no heed of passing hours. Even her 
 father, the abstracted man of affairs, nodded to dusty 
 people along the road; to a jolly old man whose bulk 
 rolled and shook in a tiny, rhythmically creaking 
 buggy, to women in the small abrupt towns with their 
 huge red elevators and their long, flat-roofed stores. 
 
 Claire had discovered America, and she felt stronger, 
 and all her days were colored with the sun. 
 
 She had discovered, too, that she could adventure. 
 No longer was she haunted by the apprehension that 
 had whispered to her as she had left Minneapolis. 
 
68 FREE AIR 
 
 She knew a thrill when she hailed — as though it were 
 a passing ship — an Illinois car across whose dust- 
 caked back was a banner " Chicago to the Yellow- 
 stone." Slie experienced a new sensation of common 
 humanness when, on a railway paralleling the wagon 
 road for miles, the engineer of a freight waved his 
 hand to her, and tooted the whistle in greeting. 
 
 Her father was easily tired, but he drowsed through 
 the early afternoons when a none-too-digestible small- 
 town lunch was as lead within him. Despite the beauty 
 of the land and the joy of pushing on, they both had 
 things to endure. 
 
 After lunch, it was sometimes an agony to Claire 
 to keep awake. Her eyes felt greasy from the food, 
 or smarted with the sun-glare. In the still air, after 
 the morning breeze had been burnt out, the heat from 
 the engine was a torment about her feet; and if there 
 was another car ahead, the trail of dust sifted into 
 her throat. Unless there was traffic to keep her awake, 
 she nodded at the wheel; she was merely a part of a 
 machine that ran on without seeming to make any 
 impression on the prairie's endlessness. 
 
 Over and over there were the same manipulations : 
 slow for down hill, careful of sand at the bottom, let- 
 ting her out on a smooth stretch, waving to a lonely 
 farmwife in her small, baked dooryard, slow to pass a 
 hay- wagon, gas for up the next hill, and repeat the 
 round all over again. But she was joyous till noon; 
 
FREE AIR 69 
 
 and with mid-afternoon a new strength came which, 
 as rose crept above the golden haze of dust, deepened 
 into serene meditation. 
 
 And she was finding the one secret of long-distance 
 driving — namely, driving; keeping on, thinking by 
 fifty-mile units, not by the ten-mile stretches of Long 
 Island runs; and not fretting over anything whatever. 
 She seemed charmed; if she had a puncture — ^why, 
 she put on the spare. If she ran out of gas — why, any 
 passing driver would lend her a gallon. Nothing, it 
 seemed, could halt her level flight across the giant 
 land. 
 
 She rarely lost her way. She was guided by the 
 friendly trail signs — those big red R's and L's on fence 
 post and telephone pole, magically telling the way from 
 the Mississippi to the Pacific. 
 
 Her father's occasional musing talk kept her from 
 loneliness. He was a good touring companion. 
 Motoring is not the best occasion for epigrams, satire, 
 and the Good One You Got Ofif at the Lambs' Club 
 last night. Such verbiage on motor trips invariably 
 results in the mysterious finding of the corpse of a 
 strange man, well dressed, hidden beside the road. 
 Claire and her father mumbled, " Good farmhouse 
 — brick," or " Nice view," and smiled, and were for 
 miles as silent as the companionable sky. 
 
 She thought of the people she knew, especially of 
 Jeff Saxton. But she could not clearly remember his 
 
70 FREE AIR 
 
 lean earnest face. Between her and Jeff were sweep- 
 ing sunny leagues. But she was not lonely. Certainly 
 she was not lonely for a young man with a raincoat, a 
 cat, and an interest in Japan. 
 
 No singer after a first concert has felt more trium- 
 phant than Claire when she crossed her first state-line ; 
 rumbled over the bridge across the Red River into 
 North Dakota. To see Dakota car licenses every- 
 where, instead of Minnesota, was like the sensation of 
 street signs in a new language. And when she found 
 a good hotel in Fargo and had a real bath, she felt that 
 by her own efforts she had earned the right to enjoy it. 
 
 Mr. Boltwood caught her enthusiasm. Dinner was 
 a festival, and in iced tea the peaceful conquistadores 
 drank the toast of the new Spanish Main; and after- 
 ward, arm in arm, went chattering to the movies. 
 
 In front of the Royal Palace, Pictures, 4 Great Acts 
 Vaudeville 4, was browsing a small, beetle-like, tin- 
 covered car. 
 
 " Dad ! Look ! I'm sure — ^yes, of course, there's 
 his suitcase — that's the car of that nice boy — don't 
 you remember? — the one that pulled us out of the mud 
 at — I don't remember the name of the place. Appar- 
 ently he's keeping going. I remember; he's headed for 
 Seattle, too. We'll look for him in the theater. Oh, 
 the darling, there's his cat ! What was the funny name 
 he gave her — the Marchioness Montmorency or some- 
 thing?" 
 
FREE AIR 71 
 
 Lady Vere de Vere, afraid of Fargo and movie 
 crowds, but trusting in her itinerent castle, the bug, 
 was curled in Milt Daggett's ulster, in the bottom of 
 the car. She twinkled her whiskers at Claire, and 
 purred to a stroking hand. 
 
 With the excitement of one trying to find the ad- 
 dress of a friend in a strange land Claire looked over 
 the audience when the lights came on before the vaude- 
 ville. In the second row she saw Milt's stififish, rope- 
 colored hair — surprisingly smooth above an astound- 
 ingly clean new tan shirt of mercerized silk. 
 
 He laughed furiously at the dialogue between Pete- 
 Rosenheim & Larose-Bettina, though it contained the 
 cheese joke, the mother-in-law joke, and the joke about 
 the wife rifling her husband's pockets. 
 
 " Our young friend seems to have enviable youthful 
 spirits," commented Mr. Boltwood. 
 
 " Now, no superiority ! He's probably never seen 
 a real vaudeville show. Wouldn't it be fun to take 
 him to the Winter Garden or the Follies for the first 
 time! . . . Instead of being taken by Jeff Saxton, 
 and having the humor, oh ! so articulately explained ! " 
 
 The pictures were resumed; the film which, under 
 ten or twelve dififerent titles, Claire had already seen, 
 even though Brooklyn Heights does not devote Satur- 
 day evening to the movies. The badman, the sherifif 
 — an aged party with whiskers and boots — the holdup, 
 the sad eyes of the sheriff's daughter — also an aged 
 
7? FREE AIR 
 
 party, but with a sunbonnet and the most expensive 
 rouge^the crook's reformation, and his violent ad- 
 herence to law and order; this libel Upon the portions 
 of these United States lying west of longitude ioi° 
 Claire had seen too often. She dragged her father 
 back to the hotel, sent him to bed, and entered her 
 room — to find a telegram upon the bureau. 
 
 She had sent her friends a list of the places at which 
 she would be likely to stop. The message was from 
 Jefif Saxton, in Brooklyn. It brought to her mind the 
 steady shine of his glasses — the most expensive glasses, 
 with the very best curved lenses — as it demanded : 
 
 " Received, letter about trip surprised anxious will 
 tire you out fatigue prairie roads bad for your father 
 mountain roads dangerous strongly advise go only 
 part way then take train. Geoffrey." 
 
 She held the telegram, flipping her fingers against 
 one end of it as she debated. She remembered how 
 the wide world had flowed toward her over the hood 
 of the Qomez all day. She wrote in answer : 
 
 " Awful perils of road, two punctures, split infini- 
 tive, eggs at lunch questionable, but struggle on." 
 
 Before she sent it she held council with her father. 
 She sat on the foot of his bed and tried to sound duti- 
 
FREE AIR 73 
 
 ful. " I don't want to do anything that's bad for 
 you, daddy. But isn't it taking your mind away from 
 business ? " 
 
 " Ye-es, I think it is. Anyway, we'll try it a few 
 days more." 
 
 " I fancy we can stand up under the strain and 
 perils. I think we can persuade some of these big 
 farmers to come to the rescue if we encounter any 
 walruses or crocodiles among the wheat. And I have 
 a feeling that if we ever get stuck, our friend of the 
 Teal bug will help us." 
 
 " Probably never see him again. He'll skip on ahead 
 of us." 
 
 "Of course. We haven't laid an eye on him, along 
 the road. He must have gotten into Fargo long before 
 we did. Now tomorrow I think " 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE GREAT AMERICAN FRYING PAN 
 
 IT was Claire's first bad day since the hole in the 
 mud. She had started gallantly, scooting along 
 the level road that flies straight west of Fargo. But 
 at noon she encountered a restaurant which made eat- 
 ing seem an evil. 
 
 That they might have fair fame among motorists 
 the commercial club of Reaper had set at the edge 
 of town a sign " Welcome to Reaper, a Live Town — 
 Speed Limit 8 Miles perhr." Being interpreted, that 
 sign meant that if you went much over twenty miles an 
 hour on the main street, people might glance at you; 
 and that the real welcome, the only impression of 
 Reaper that tourists were likely to carry away, was the 
 welcome in the one restaurant. It was called the Eats 
 Garden. As Claire and her father entered, they were 
 stifled by a belch of smoke from the frying pan in the 
 kitchen. The room was blocked by a huge lunch 
 counter; there was only one table, covered with oil 
 cloth decorated with venerable spots of dried egg yolk. 
 
 The waiter-cook, whose apron was gravy-patterned, 
 with a border and stomacher of plain gray dirt, grum- 
 bled, "Whadyuhwant?" 
 
 Claire sufficiently recovered to pick out the type 
 
 74 
 
FREE AIR 75 
 
 from the fly specks on the menu, and she ordered a 
 small steak and coffee for her father; for herself tea, 
 boiled eggs, toast. 
 
 " Toast ? We ain't got any toast ! " 
 
 " Well, can't you make it? " 
 
 " Oh, I suppose I could " 
 
 When they came, the slices of toast were an inch 
 thick, burnt on one side and raw on the other. The 
 tea was bitter and the eggs watery. Her father re- 
 ported that his steak was high-test rawhide, and his 
 coffee — well, he wasn't sure just what substitute had 
 been used for chicory, but he thought it was luke- 
 warm quinine. 
 
 Claire raged : " You know, this town really has 
 aspirations. They're beginning to build such nice 
 
 little bungalows, and there's a fine clean bank 
 
 Then they permit this scoundrel to advertise the town 
 among strangers, influential strangers, in motors, by 
 serving food like this ! I suppose they think that they 
 arrest criminals here, yet this restaurant man is a thief, 
 
 to charge real money for food like this Yes, and 
 
 he's a murderer! " 
 
 " Oh, come now, dolly ! " 
 
 " Yes he is, literally. He must in his glorious career 
 have given chronic indigestion to thousands of people 
 — shortened their lives by years. That's wholesale 
 murder. HI were the authorities here, I'd be in- 
 dulgent to the people who only murder one or two 
 
76 FREE AIR 
 
 people, but imprison this cook for life. Really! I 
 mean it ! " 
 
 " Well, he probably does the best he " 
 
 " He does not ! These eggs and this bread were 
 perfectly good, before he did black magic over them. 
 And did you see the contemptuous look he gave me 
 when I was so eccentric as to order toast ? Oh, Reaper, 
 Reaper, you desire a modern town, yet I wonder if you 
 know how many thousands of tourists go from coast 
 to coast, cursing you? If I could only hang that 
 restaurant man — and the others like him — in a rope 
 of his own hempen griddle cakes! The Great Ameri- 
 can Frying Pan! I don't expect men building a new 
 town to have time to read Hugh Walpole and James 
 Branch Cabell, but I do expect them to afford a cook 
 who can fry eggs ! " 
 
 As she paid the check, Claire tried to think of some 
 protest which would have any effect on the obese wits 
 of the restaurant man. In face of his pink puffiness 
 she gave it up. Her failure as a Citizeness Fixit sent 
 her out of the place in a fury, carried her on in a dusty 
 whirl till the engine spat, sounded tired and reflective, 
 and said it guessed it wouldn't go any farther that 
 day. 
 
 Now that she had something to do, Claire became 
 patient. " Run out of gas. Isn't it lucky I got that 
 can for an extra gallon ? " 
 
 But there was plenty of gas. There was no dis- 
 
FREE AIR 77 
 
 cernible reason why the car should not go. She started 
 the engine. It ran for half a minute and quit. All 
 the plugs showed sparks. No wires were detached in 
 the distributor. There was plenty of water, and the 
 oil was not clogged. And that ended Claire's knowl- 
 edge of the inside of a motor. 
 
 She stopped two motorists. The first was sure that 
 there was dirt on the point of the needle valve, in the 
 carburetor. While Claire shuddered lest he never get 
 it back, he took out the needle valve, wiped it, put it 
 back — and the engine was again started, and again, 
 with great promptness, it stopped. 
 
 The second Good Samaritan knew that one of the 
 wires in the distributor must be detached and, though 
 she assured him that she had inspected them, he looked 
 pityingly at her smart sports-suit, said, " Well, I'll 
 just take a look," and removed the distributor cover. 
 He also scratched his head, felt of the fuses under the 
 cowl, scratched his cheek, poked a finger at the carbu- 
 retor, rubbed his ear, said, " Well, uh " looked to 
 
 see if there was water and gas, sighed, " Can't just 
 seem to find out what's the trouble," shot at his own 
 car, and escaped. 
 
 Claire had been highly grateful and laudatory to 
 both of them — ^but she remained here, ten miles from 
 nowhere. It was a beautiful place. Down a hill the 
 wheat swam toward a village whose elevator was a 
 glistening tower. Mud-hens gabbled in a slew, alfalfa 
 
78 FREE AIR 
 
 shone with unearthly green, and bees went junketing 
 toward a field of red clover. But she had the motor- 
 ist's fever to go on. The road behind and in front 
 was very long, very white — ^and very empty. 
 
 Her father, out of much thought and a solid igno- 
 rance about all of motoring beyond the hiring of 
 chauffeurs and the payment of bills, suggested, " Uh, 
 
 dolly, have you looked to see if these, uh Is the 
 
 carburetor all right?" 
 
 " Yes, dear ; I've looked at it three times, so far," 
 she said, just a little too smoothly. 
 
 On the hill five miles to eastward, a line of dust, then 
 a small car. As it approached, the driver must have 
 sighted her and increased speed. He came up at 
 thirty-five miles an hour. 
 
 " Now we'll get something done ! Look ! It's a 
 bug — a flivver or a Teal or something. I believe it's 
 the young man that got us out of the mud." 
 
 Milt Daggett stopped, casually greeted them : " Why, 
 hello. Miss Boltwood. Thought you'd be way ahead 
 of me some place! " 
 
 " Mrwr," said Vere de Vere. What this meant the 
 historian does not know. 
 
 "No; I've been taking it easy. Mr., Uh — I can't 
 quite remember your name " 
 
 " Milt Daggett." 
 
 " There's something mysterious the matter with my 
 car. The engine will start, after it's left alone a while, 
 
FREE AIR 79 
 
 but then it stalls. Do you suppose you could tell what 
 it is?" 
 
 " I don't know. I'll see if I can find out." 
 
 " Then you probably will. The other two men knew 
 everything. One of them was the inventor of wheels, 
 and the other discovered skidding. So of course they 
 couldn't help me." 
 
 Milt added nothing to her frivolity, but his smile 
 was friendly. He lifted the round rubber cap of the 
 distributor. Then Claire's faith tumbled in the dust. 
 Twice had the wires been tested. Milt tested them 
 again. She was too tired of botching to tell him he 
 was wasting time. 
 
 "Got an oil can?" he hesitated. 
 
 Through a tiny hole in the plate of the distributor he 
 dripped two drops of oil — only two drops. " I guess 
 maybe that's what it needed. You might try her now, 
 and see how she runs," he said mildly. 
 
 Dubiously Claire started the engine. It sang jubi- 
 lantly, and it did not stop. Again was the road open 
 to her. Again was the settlement over there, to which 
 it would have taken her an hour to walk, only six 
 minutes away. 
 
 She stopped the engine, beamed at him — there in the 
 dust, on the quiet hilltop. He said as apologetically 
 as though he had been at fault, "Distributor got 
 dry. Might give it a little oil about once in six 
 months." 
 
8o FREE AIR 
 
 " We are so grateful to you ! Twice now you've 
 saved our lives." 
 
 " Oh, I guess you'd have gone on living! And if 
 drivers can't help each other, who can ? " 
 
 " That's a good start toward world-fellowship, I 
 
 suppose. I wish we could do Return your lunch 
 
 or Mr. Daggett! Do you read books? I 
 
 mean " 
 
 " Yes I do, when I run across them." 
 
 " Mayn't I gi — lend you these two that I happen 
 to have along? I've finished them, and so has father, 
 I think." 
 
 From the folds of the strapped-down top she pulled 
 out Compton Mackenzie's Youth's Encounter, and 
 Vachel Lindsay's Congo. With a curious faint ex- 
 citement she watched him turn the leaves. His blunt 
 fingers flapped through them as though he was used 
 to books. As he looked at Congo, he exclaimed, 
 " Poetry ! That's fine ! Like it, but I don't hardly 
 
 ever run across it. I Say I'm terribly 
 
 obliged!" 
 
 His clear face lifted, sun-brown and young and 
 adoring. She had not often seen men look at her 
 thus. Certainly Jeflf Saxton's painless worship did 
 not turn him into the likeness of a knight among ban- 
 ners. Yet the good Geoffrey loved her, while to Milt 
 Daggett she could be nothing more than a strange 
 young woman in a car with a New York license. If 
 
FREE AIR 8i 
 
 her tiny gift could so please him, how poor he must 
 be. " He probably lives on some barren farm," she 
 thought, " or he's a penniless mechanic hoping for a 
 good job in Seattle. How white his forehead is ! " 
 
 But aloud she was saying, " I hope you're enjoying 
 your trip." 
 
 " Oh yes. I like it fine. You having a good time? 
 Well Well, thanks for the books." 
 
 She was off before him. Presently she exclaimed 
 to Mr. Boltwood: "You know — just occurs to me — 
 it's rather curious that our young friend should be so 
 coincidental as to come along just when we needed 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, he just happened to, I suppose," hemmed her 
 father. 
 
 " I'm not so sure," she meditated, while she ab- 
 sently watched another member of the Poultry Suicide 
 Club rush out of a safe ditch, prepare to take leave 
 for immortality, change her fowlish mind, flutter up 
 over the hood of the car, and come down squawking 
 her indignities to the barnyard. " I'm not so sure 
 
 about his happening No. I wonder if he could 
 
 possibly Oh no. I hope not. Flattering, but 
 
 You don't suppose he could be deliberately following 
 
 us.' 
 
 ?" 
 
 " Nonsense ! He's a perfectly decent young chap." 
 
 " I know. Of course. He probably works hard in 
 
 a garage, and is terribly nice to his mother and sisters 
 
82 FREE AIR 
 
 at home. I mean I wouldn't want the dear latab 
 
 to be a devoted knight, though. Too thankless a job." 
 
 She slowed the car down to fifteen an hour. For 
 the first time she began to watch the road behind her. 
 In a few minutes a moving spot showed in the dust 
 three miles back. Oh, naturally; he would still be 
 
 behind her. Only If she stopped, just to look at 
 
 the scenery, he would go on ahead of her. She 
 stopped for a moment — for a time too brief to indicate 
 that anything had gone wrong with her car. Staring 
 back she saw that the bug stopped also, and she fancied 
 that Milt was out standing beside it, peering with his 
 palm over his eyes — a spy, unnatural and disturbing 
 in the wide peace. 
 
 She drove on a mile and halted again; again halted 
 her attendant. He was keeping a consistent two to 
 four miles behind, she estimated. 
 
 " This won't do at all," she worried. " Flattering, 
 but somehow Whatever sort of a cocoon- 
 wrapped hussy I am, I don't collect scalps. I won't 
 have young men serving me — graft on them — ^get 
 amusement out of their struggles. Besides — suppose 
 he became just a little more friendly, each time he 
 came up, all the way from here to Seattle ? . . . Fresh. 
 . . . No, it won't do." 
 
 She ran the car to the side of the road. 
 
 " More trouble ? " groaned her father. 
 
 " No. Just want to see scenery." 
 
FREE AIR 83 
 
 " But There's a good deal of scenery on all 
 
 sides, without stopping, seems to me ! " 
 
 " Yes, but " She looked back. Milt had come 
 
 into sight; had paused to take observations. Her 
 father caught it: 
 
 " Oh, I see. Pardon me. Our squire still follow- 
 ing? Let him go on ahead ? Wise lass." 
 
 " Yes. I think perhaps it's better to avoid compli- 
 cations." 
 
 " Of course." Mr. Boltwood's manner did not 
 merely avoid Milt; it abolished him. 
 
 She saw Milt, after five minutes of stationary watch- 
 ing, start forward. He came dustily rattling up with 
 a hail of "Distributor on strike again?" so cheerful 
 that it hurt her to dismiss him. But she had managed 
 a household. She was able to say suavely : 
 
 " No, everything is fine. I'm sure it will be, now. 
 I'm afraid we are holding you back. You mustn't 
 worry about us." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," breezily. " Something might 
 go wrong. Say, is this poetry book " 
 
 " No, I'm sure nothing will go wrong now. You 
 mustn't feel responsible for us. But, uh, you under- 
 stand we're very grateful for what you have done 
 and, uh, perhaps we shall see each other in Seattle?" 
 She made it brightly interrogatory. 
 
 " Oh, I see." His hands gripped the wheel. His 
 cheeks had been too ruddily tinted by the Dakota sun 
 
84 FREE AIR 
 
 to show a blush, but his teeth caught his lower lip. 
 He had no starter on his bug; he had in his embar- 
 rassment to get out and crank. • He did it quietly, not 
 looking at her. She could see that his hand trembled 
 on the crank. When he did glance at her, as he drove 
 ofif, it was apologetically, miserably. His foot was 
 shaking on the clutch pedal. 
 
 The dust behind his car concealed him. For twenty 
 miles she was silent, save when she burst out to her 
 father, " I do hope you're enjoying the trip. It's so 
 
 easy to make people unhappy. I wonder No, 
 
 Had to be done." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF CANNED SHRIMPS AND 
 HESPERIDES 
 
 ON the morning when Milt Daggett had awakened 
 to sunshine in the woods north of Gopher 
 Prairie, he had discovered the golden age. As mile 
 on mile he jogged over new hills, without having to 
 worry about getting back to his garage in time to 
 repair somebody's car, he realized that for the past 
 two years he had forced himself to find contentment in 
 building up a business that had no future. 
 
 Now he laughed and whooped; he drove with one 
 foot inelegantly and enchantingly up on the edge of' 
 the cowl; he made Lady Vere de Vere bow to 
 astounded farmers; he went to the movies every 
 evening — twice, in Fargo; and when the chariot of the 
 young prince swept to the brow of a hill, he murmured, 
 not in the manner of a bug-driver but with a stinging 
 awe, " All that big country ! Ours to see, puss ! We'll 
 settle down some day and be solid citizens and raise 
 
 families and wheeze when we walk, but All those 
 
 hills to sail over and Come on ! Lez sail ! " 
 
 Milt attended the motion pictures every evening, 
 and he saw them in a new way. As recently as one 
 week before he had preferred those earnest depictions 
 in which hard-working, moral actors shoot one an- 
 
 85 
 
86 FREE AIR 
 
 other, or ride the most uncomfortable horses up moun- 
 tain-sides. But now, with a mental apology to ^hat 
 propagandist of lowbrowism, the absent Mac, he chose 
 the films in which the leading men wore evening 
 clothes, and no one ever did anything without being 
 assisted by a " man." Aside from the pictures Milt's 
 best tutors were traveling men. Though he measured 
 every cent, and for his campfire dinners bought modest 
 chuck steaks, he had at least one meal a day at a hotel, 
 to watch the traveling men. 
 
 To Claire, traveling men were merely commercial 
 persons in hard-boiled suits. She identified them with 
 the writing-up of order-slips on long littered writing- 
 tables, and with hotels that reduced the delicate arts 
 of dining and sleeping to gray greasiness. But Milt 
 knew traveling men. He knew that not only were 
 they the missionaries of business, supplementing the 
 taking of orders by telling merchants how to build up 
 trade, how to trim windows and treat customers like 
 human beings ; but also that they, as much as the local 
 ministers and doctors and teachers and newspaper- 
 men, were the agents in spreading knowledge and 
 justice. It was they who showed the young men how 
 to have their hair cut — and to wash behind the ears 
 and shave daily; they who encouraged villagers to rise 
 from scandal and gossip to a perception of the Great 
 World, of politics and sports, and some measure of art 
 and science. 
 
FREE AIR 87 
 
 Claire, and indeed her father and Mr. Jeff Saxton as 
 well, had vaguely concluded that because drummers 
 were always to be seen in soggy hotels and badly con- 
 necting trains and the headachy waiting-rooms of 
 stations, they must like these places. Milt knew that 
 the drummers were martyrs; that for months of a 
 trip, all the while thinking of the children back home, 
 they suffered from landlords and train schedules ; that 
 they were Claire's best allies in fighting the Great 
 American Frying Pan; that they knew good things, 
 and fought against the laziness and impositions of 
 people who " kept hotel " because they had failed as 
 farmers; and that when they did find a landlord who 
 was cordial and efficient, they went forth mightily 
 advertising that glorious man. The traveling men, he 
 knew, were pioneers in spats. 
 
 Hence it was to the traveling men, not to super- 
 cilious tourists in limousines, that Milt turned for 
 suggestions as to how to perform the miracle of chang- 
 ing from an ambitious boy into what Claire would 
 recognize as a charming man. He had not met enough 
 traveling men at Schoenstrom. They scooped up what 
 little business there was, and escaped from the Leipzig 
 House to spend the night at St. Cloud or Sauk Centre. 
 
 In the larger towns in Minnesota and Dakota, after 
 evening movies, before slipping out to his roadside 
 camp Milt inserted himself into a circle of traveling 
 men in large leather chairs, and ventured, " Saw a 
 
88 FREEAIR 
 
 Gomez-Dep with a New York license down the line 
 today." 
 
 "Oh. You driving through?" 
 
 " Yes. Going to Seattle." 
 
 That distinguished Milt from the ordinary young- 
 men-loafers, and he was admitted as one of th^ as- 
 sembly of men who traveled and saw things and 
 wondered about the ways of men. It was good talk 
 he heard; too much of hotels, and too many tight 
 banal little phrases suggesting the solution of all 
 economic complexities by hanging " agitators," but 
 with this, an exciting accumulation of- impressions of 
 Vancouver and San Diego, Florida and K. C. 
 
 " That's a wonderful work farm they have at 
 Duluth," said one, and the next, " speaking of that, 
 I was in Chicago last week, and I saw a play " 
 
 Milt had, in his two years of high school in St. 
 Cloud, and in his boyhood under the genial but 
 abstracted eye of the Old Doctor, learned that it was 
 not well thought of to use the knife as a hod and to 
 plaster mashed potatoes upon it, as was the custom in 
 Mac's Old Home Lunch at Schoenstrom. But the 
 arts of courteously approaching oysters, salad, and 
 peas were rather unfamihar to him. Now he studied 
 forks as he had once studied carburetors, and he gave 
 spiritual devotion to the nice eating of a canned-shrimp 
 cocktail — a lost legion of shrimps, now two thousand 
 miles and two years away from their ocean home. 
 
FREE AIR 89 
 
 He peeped with equal earnestness at the socks and 
 the shirts of the traveling ^i^n. Socks had been to 
 him not an article of faith mlt a detail of economy. 
 His attitude to socks had lacked in reverence and 
 technique. He had not perceived that socks may be 
 as sound a symbol of culture as the 'cello or even de- 
 mountable rims. He had been able to think with 
 respect of ties and damp pique collars secured by gold 
 safety-pins; and to the belted fawn overcoat that the 
 St. Klopstock banker's son had brought back from St. 
 Paul, he had given jealous attention. But now he 
 graduated into differential socks. 
 
 By his campfire, sighing to the rather somnolent 
 Vere de Vere, he scornfully yanked his extra pairs of 
 thick, white-streaked, yellow cotton socks from the 
 wicker suitcase, and uttered anathema: 
 
 " Begone, ye unworthy and punk-looking raiment. 
 I know ye ! Ye werst a bargain and two pairs for two 
 bits. But even as Adolph Zolzac and an agent for fliv- 
 ver accessories are ye become in my eyes, ye genera- 
 tion of vipers, ye clumsy, bag-footed, wrinkle-sided 
 gunny-sacking ye ! " 
 
 Next day, in the woods, a happy hobo found that 
 the manna-bringing ravens had left him four pairs of 
 good socks. 
 
 Five quite expensive pairs of silk and lisle socks 
 Milt purchased— all that the general merchant at Jeppe 
 had in stock. What they lost in suitability to tour- 
 
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 ing and to private laundering at creeks, they gained 
 as symbols. Milt felt less shut out from the life of 
 leisure. Now, in Seattle, say, he could go into a good 
 hotel with less fear of the clerks. 
 
 He added attractive outing shirts, ties neither too 
 blackly dull nor too flashily crimson, and a vicious 
 nail-brush which simply tore out the motor grease 
 that had grown into the lines of his hands. Also 
 he added a book. 
 
 The book was a rhetoric. Milt knew perfectly that 
 there was an impertinence called grammar, but it had 
 never annoyed him much. He knew that many per- 
 sons preferred " They were " to " They was," and were 
 nervous in the presence of " ain't." One teacher in St. 
 Cloud had buzzed frightfully about these minutiae. 
 But Milt discovered that grammar was only the begin- 
 ning of woes. He learned that there were such mental 
 mortgages as figures of speech and the choice of syno- 
 nyms. He had always known, but he had never pas- 
 sionately felt that the invariable use of "hell," "dog- 
 gone," and " You bet ! " left certain subtleties un- 
 expressed. Now he was finding subtleties which he 
 had to express. 
 
 As joyously adventurous as going on day after day 
 was hig experimentation in voicing his new observa- 
 tions. He gave far more eagerness to it than Claire 
 Boltwood had. Gustily intoning to Vere de Vere, 
 who was the perfect audience, inasmuch as she nevei 
 
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 had anything to say but " Mrwr," and didn't mind 
 being interrupted in that, he clamored, " The prairies 
 are the sea. In the distance they are kind of silvery — 
 no — they are dim silver; and way off on the skyline 
 
 are the Islands of the — of the Now what the devil 
 
 was them, were those, islands in the mythology book 
 in high school? Of the — Blessed? Great snakes' 
 boots, you're an ignorant cat, Vere ! Hesperyds ? No ! 
 Hesperides ! Yea, 'bo ! Now that man in the hotel : 
 ' May I trouble you for the train guide ? Thanks so 
 much ! ' But how much is so much ? " 
 
 As Claire's days were set free by her consciousness 
 of sun and brown earth, so Milt's odyssey was only 
 the more valorous in his endeavor to criticize life. He 
 saw that Mac's lunch room had not been an altogether 
 satisfactory home; that Mac's habit of saying to dis- 
 satisfied customers, " If you don't like it, get out," had 
 lacked something of courtesy. Staring at towns along 
 the way. Milt saw that houses were not merely large 
 and comfortable, or small and stingy; but that there 
 was an interesting thing he remembered hearing his 
 teachers call " good taste." 
 
 He was not the preoccupied Milt of the garage but 
 a gay-eyed gallant, the evening when he gave a lift to 
 the school-teacher and drove her from the district 
 school among the wild roses and the corn to her home 
 in the next town. She was a neat, tripping, trim-sided 
 school-teacher of nineteen or twenty. 
 
92 FREE AIR 
 
 " You're going out to Seattle ? My ! That's a won- 
 derful trip. Don't you get tired ? " she adored. 
 
 " Oh, no. And I'm seeing things. I used to think 
 everything worth while was right near my own town." 
 
 " You're so wise to go places. Most of the boys I 
 know don't think there is any world beyond Jimtown 
 and Fargo." 
 
 She glowed at him. Milt was saying to himself, 
 "Am I a fool? I probably could make this girl fall 
 in love with me. And she's better than I am ; so darn 
 neat and clean and gentle. We'd be happy. She's a 
 nice comfy fire, and here I go like a boob, chasing after 
 a lone, cold star like Miss Boltwood, and probably I'll 
 fall into all the slews from hell to breakfast on the 
 way. But I'd get sleepy by a comfy fire." 
 
 " Are you thinking hard ? You're frowning so," 
 ventured the school-teacher. 
 
 " Didn't mean to. 'Scuse! " he laughed. One hand 
 ofif the steering wheel, he took her hand — a fresh, 
 cool, virginal hand, snuggling into his, suddenly stir- 
 ring him. He wanted to hold it tighter. The lament- 
 ing historian of love's pilgrimage must set down the 
 fact that the pilgrim for at least a second forgot the 
 divine tread of the goddess Claire, and made rapid 
 calculation that he could, in a pinch, drive from 
 Schoenstrom to the teacher's town in two days and a 
 night; that therefore courtship, and this sweet white 
 hand resting in his, were not impossible. Milt himself 
 
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 did not know what it was that made him lay down the 
 hand and say, so softly that he was but half audible 
 through the rattle of the engine : 
 
 " Isn't this a slick, mean to say glorious evening? 
 Sky rose and then that funny lavender. And that new 
 
 moon ■ Makes me think of — the girl I'm in love 
 
 with." 
 
 " You're engaged? " wistfully. 
 
 " Not exactly but Say, did you study rhetoric in 
 
 Normal School? I have a rhetoric that's got all kind 
 of poetic extracts, you know, and quotations and 
 everything, from the big writers, Stevenson and all. 
 Always been so practical, making a garage pay, never 
 thought much about how I said things as long as I 
 could say ' No ! ' and say it quick. 'Cept maybe when 
 I was talking to the prof there. But it's great sport to 
 see how musical you can make a thing sound. Words. 
 Like Shenandoah. Gol-lee! Isn't that a wonderful 
 word ? Makes you see old white mansion, and mock- 
 ing birds Wonder if a fellow could be a big 
 
 engineer, you know, build bridges and so on, and still 
 talk about, oh, beautiful things? What d' you think, 
 girlie?" 
 
 " Oh, I'm sure you could ! " 
 
 Her admiration, the proximity of her fragrant 
 slightness, was pleasant in the dusk, but he did not 
 press her hand again, even when she whispered, " Good 
 night, and thank you — oh, thank you." 
 
94 FREE AIR 
 
 If Milt had been driving at the rate at which he 
 usually made his skipjack carom over the roads about 
 Schoenstrom, he would by now have been through 
 Dakota, into Montana. But he was deliberately hold- 
 ing down the speed. When he had been tempted by a 
 smooth stretch to go too breathlessly, he halted, teased 
 Vere de Vere, climbed out and, sitting on a hilltop, his 
 hands about his knees, drenched his soul with the 
 vision of amber distances. 
 
 He tried so to time his progress that he might always 
 be from three to five miles behind Claire — distant 
 enough to be unnoticed, near enough to help in case 
 of need. For behind poetic expression and the use of 
 forks was the fact that his purpose in life was to know 
 Claire. 
 
 When he was caught, when Claire informed him 
 that he " mustn't worry about her "; when, slowly, he 
 understood that she wasn't being neighborly and inter- 
 ested in his making time, he wanted to escape, never 
 to see her again. 
 
 For thirty miles his cheeks were fiery. He, most 
 considerate of roadmen, crowded a woman in a flivver, 
 passed a laboring car on an upgrade with such a burst 
 that the uneasy driver bumped oflf into a ditch. He 
 hadn't really seen them. Only mechanically had he 
 got past them. He was muttering: 
 
 " She thought I was trying to butt in ! Stung 
 again ! Like a small boy in love with teacher. And I 
 
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 thought I was so wise! Cussed out Mac — ^blamed 
 Mac — no, damn all the fine words — cussed out Mac 
 for being the village rumhound. Boozing is twice as 
 sensible as me. See a girl, nice dress — start for 
 Seattle! Two thousand miles away! Of course she 
 bawled me out. She was dead right. Boob ! Yahoo ! 
 Goat!" 
 
 He caught up Vere de Vere, rubbed her fur against 
 his cheek while he mourned, " Oh, puss, you got to be 
 nice to me. I thought I'd do big things. And then the 
 alarm clock went off. I'm back in Schoenstrom. For 
 keeps, I guess. I didn't know I had feelings that could 
 get hurt like this. Thought I had a rhinoceros 
 
 hide. But Oh, it isn't just feeling ashamed 
 
 over being a fool. It's that Won't ever see her 
 
 again. Not once. Way I saw her through the win- 
 dow, at that hotel, in that blue silky dress — that 
 funny long line of buttons, and her throat. Never 
 have dinner — lunch — with her by the road " 
 
 In the reaction of anger he demanded of Vere de 
 Vere, "What the deuce do I care? If she's chump 
 enough to chase away a crack garage man that's gone 
 batty and wants to work for nothing, let her go on 
 and hit some crook garage and get stuck for an entire 
 overhauling. What do I care? Had nice trip; that's 
 all I wanted. Never did intend to go clear to Seattle, 
 anyway. Go on to Butte, then back home. No more 
 fussing about fool table-manners and books, and I cer- 
 
96 FREE AIR 
 
 tainly will cut out tagging behind her! No, sir! 
 Nev-er again I " 
 
 It was somewhat inconsistent to add, " There's a 
 bully place — sneak in and let her get past me again. 
 But she won't catch me following next time!" 
 
 While he tried to keep up his virtuous anger, he 
 was steering ipto an abandoned farmyard, parking 
 the car behind cottonwoods and neglected tall currant 
 bushes which would conceal it from the road. 
 
 The windows of the deserted house stared at him; 
 a splintered screen door banged in every breeze. 
 Lichens leered from the cracks of the porch. The 
 yard was filled with a litter of Cottonwood twig^, and 
 over the flower garden hulked ragged weeds. In the 
 rank grass about the slimy green lip of the well, 
 crickets piped derisively. The barn-door was open. 
 Stray kernels of wheat had sprouted between the 
 spokes of a rusty binder-wheel. A rat slipped across 
 the edge of the shattered manger. As dusk came on, 
 gray things seemed to slither past the upper windows 
 of the house, and somewhere, under the roof, there 
 was a moaning. Milt was sure that it was the wind 
 in a knothole. He told himself that he was absolutely 
 sure about it. And every time it came he stroked 
 Vere de Vere carefully, and once, when the moaning 
 ended in the slamming of the screen door, he said, 
 "Jiminyl" 
 
 This boy of the unghostly cylinders and tangible 
 
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 magnetos had never seen a haunted house. To toil of 
 the harvest field and machine shop and to trudging 
 the sun-beaten road he was accustomed, but he had 
 never crouched watching the slinking spirits of old 
 hopes and broken aspirations ; feeble phantoms of the 
 first eager bridegroom who had come to this place, and 
 the mortgage-crushed, rust-wheat-ruined man who 
 had left it. He wanted to leap into the bug and go on. 
 Yet the haunt of murmurous memories dignified his 
 unhappiness. In the soft, tree-dimmed dooryard 
 among dry, blazing plains it seemed indecent to go on 
 growling " Gee," and " Can you beat it? " It was a 
 young poet, a poet rhymeless and inarticulate, who 
 huddled behind the shield of untrimmed currant 
 bushes, and thought of the girl he would never see 
 again. 
 
 He was hungry, but he did not eat. He was 
 cramped, but he did not move. He picked up the books 
 she had given him. He was quickened by the powdery 
 beauty of Youth's Encounter; by the vision of laughter 
 and dancing steps beneath a streaky gas-glow in the 
 London fog; of youth not " roughhousing " and want- 
 ing to " be a sport," yet in frail beauty and faded 
 crimson banners finding such exaltation as Schoen- 
 strom had never known. But every page suggested 
 Claire, and he tucked the book away. 
 
 In Vachel Lindsay's Congo, in a poem called " The 
 Santa Fe Trail," he found his own modern pilgrimage 
 
98 FREE AIR 
 
 from another point of view. Here was the poet, dis- 
 turbed by the honking hustle of passing cars. But 
 Milt belonged to the honking and the hustle, and it 
 was not the soul of the grass that he read in the poem, 
 but his own sun-flickering flight: 
 
 Swiftly the brazen car comes on. 
 
 It burns in the East as the sunrise burns. 
 
 I see great flashes where the far trail turns. 
 
 Butting through the delicate mists of the morning. 
 
 It comes like lightning, goes past roaring, 
 
 It will hail all the windmills, taunting, ringing, 
 
 On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills — 
 
 Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. 
 
 Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn. 
 
 Ho for the gay-horn, bark-horn, bay-horn. 
 
 Milt did not reflect that if the poet had watched the 
 Teal bug go by, he would not have recorded a scare- 
 horn, a dare-horn, or anything mightier than a yip- 
 horn. Milt saw himself a cross-continent racer, with 
 the envious poet, left behind as a dot on the hill, cele- 
 brating his passing. 
 
 " Lord ! " he cried. " I didn't know there were 
 books like these ! Thought poetry was all like Long- 
 fellow and Byron. Old boys. Europe. And rhymed 
 bellyachin' about hard luck. But these books — they're 
 me." Very carefully: " No; they're I! And she gave 
 'em to me ! I will see her again ! But she won't know 
 
FREE AIR 99 
 
 it. Now be sensible, son ! What do you expect ? Oh 
 — nothing. I'll just go on, and sneak in one more 
 glimpse of her to take back with me where I belong." 
 
 Half an hour after Claire had innocently passed his 
 ambush, he began to follow her. But not for days was 
 he careless. If he saw her on the horizon he paused 
 until she was out of sight. That he might not fail her 
 in need, he bought a ridiculously expensive pair of 
 field glasses, and watched her when she stopped by the 
 road. Once, when both her right rear tire and the 
 spare were punctured before she could make a town, 
 Milt from afar saw her patch a tube, pump up the tire 
 in the dust. He ached to go to her aid — though it 
 cannot be said that hand-pumping was his favorite 
 July afternoon sport. 
 
 Lest he encounter her in the streets, he always 
 camped to the eastward of the town at which she spent 
 the night. After dusk, when she was likely to end the 
 day's drive in the first sizable place, he hid his bug in 
 an alley and, like a spy after the papers, sneaked into 
 each garage to see if her car was there. 
 
 He would stroll in, look about vacuously, and pipe 
 to the suspicious night attendant, " Seen a traveling 
 man named Smith? " Usually the garage man snarled, 
 " No, I ain't seen nobody named Smith. An'thing 
 else I can do for you? " But once he was so unlucky 
 as to find the long-missing Mr. Smith ! 
 
 Mr. Smith was surprised and insistent. Milt had to 
 
loo FREE AIR 
 
 do some quick lying. During that interview the cement 
 floor felt very hard under his fidgeting feet, and he 
 thought he heard the garage man in the office telephon- 
 ing, " Don't think he knows Smith at all. I got a 
 hunch he's that auto thief that was through here last 
 summer." 
 
 When Claire did not stop in the first town she 
 reached after twilight, but drove on by dark, he had 
 to do some perilous galloping to catch up. The lights 
 of a Teal are excellent for adornment, but they have 
 no relation to illumination. They are dependent upon 
 a magneto which is dependent only upon faith. 
 
 Once, skittering along by dark, he realized that the 
 halted car which he had just passed was the Gomez. 
 He thought he heard a shout behind him, but in a 
 panic he kept going. 
 
 To the burring motor he groaned, " Now I probably 
 never will see her again. Except that she thinks I'm 
 such a pest that I dassn't let her know I'm in the same 
 state, I sure am one successful lover. As a Prince 
 Charming I win the Vanderbilt Cup. I'm going ahead 
 backwards so fast I'll probably drop ofif into the 
 Atlantic over the next hill ! " 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE MAN WITH AGATE EYES 
 
 WHEN her car had crossed the Missouri River 
 on the swing-ferry between Bismarck and 
 Mandan, Claire had passed from Middle West to Far 
 West. She came out on an upland of virgin prairie, 
 so treeless and houseless, so divinely dipping, so rough 
 of grass, that she could imagine buffaloes still roving. 
 In a hollow a real prairie schooner was camped, and 
 the wandering homestead-seekers were cooking dinner 
 beside it. From a quilt on the hay in the wagon a 
 baby peeped, and Claire's heart leaped. 
 
 Beyond was her first butte, its sharp-cut sides glit- 
 tering yellow, and she fancied that on it the Sioux 
 scout still sat sentinel, erect on his pony, the feather 
 bonnet down his back. 
 
 Now she seemed to breathe deeper, see farther. 
 Again she came from unbroken prairie into wheat 
 country and large towns. 
 
 Her impression of the new land was not merely of 
 sun-glaring breadth. Sometimes, on a cloudy day, the 
 wash of wheatlands was as brown and lowering and 
 mysterious as an English moor in the mist. It dwarfed 
 the far-off houses by its giant enchantment; its brood- 
 ing reaches changed her attitude of brisk, gas-driven 
 
I02 FREE AIR 
 
 efficiency into a melancholy that was full of hints of 
 old dark beauty. 
 
 Even when the sun came out, and the land was 
 brazenly optimistic, she saw more than just prosperity. 
 In a new home, house and barn and windmill square- 
 cornered and prosaic, plumped down in a field with 
 wheat coming up to the unporticoed door, a habitation 
 unshadowed, unsheltered, unsoftened, she found a 
 frank cleanness, as though the inhabitants looked 
 squarely out at life, unafraid. She felt that the keen 
 winds ought to blow away from such a prairie-front- 
 ing post of civilization all mildew and cowardice, all 
 the mummy dust of ancient fears. 
 
 These were not peasants, these farmers. Nor, she 
 learned, were they the " hicks " of humor. She could 
 never again encounter without fiery resentment the 
 Broadway peddler's faith that farmers invariably say 
 " Waal, by heck." For she had spent an hour talking 
 to one Dakota farmer, genial-eyed, quiet of speech. 
 He had explained the relation of alfalfa to soil-chem- 
 istry; had spoken of his daughter, who taught eco- 
 nomics in a state university; and asked Mr. Boltwood 
 how turbines were hitched up on liners. 
 
 In fact, Claire learned that there may be an almost 
 tolerable state of existence without gardenias or the 
 news about the latest Parisian imagists. 
 
 She dropped suddenly from the vast, smooth-swell- 
 ing miles of wheatland into the tortured marvels of 
 
FREE AIR 103 
 
 the Bad Lands, and the road twisted in the shadow of 
 flying buttresses and the terraced tombs of maharajas. 
 While she tried to pick her way through a herd of 
 wild, arroyo-bred cattle, she forgot her maneuvering 
 as she was startled by the stabbing scarlet of a column 
 of rock marking the place where for months deep 
 beds of lignite had burned. 
 
 Claire had often given lifts to tramping harvesters 
 and even hoboes along the road; had enjoyed the sight 
 of their duffle-bags stuck up between the sleek fenders 
 and the hood, and their talk about people and crops 
 along the road, as they hung on the running-board. 
 In the country of long hillslopes and sentinel buttes 
 between the Dakota Bad Lands and Miles City she 
 stopped to shout to a man whose plodding heavy back 
 looked fagged, "Want a ride?" 
 
 "Sure! You bet!" 
 
 Usually her guests stepped on the right-hand run- 
 ning-board, beside Mr. Boltwood, and this man was 
 far over on the right side of the road. But, while she 
 waited, he sauntered in front of the car, round to her 
 side, mounted beside her. Before the car had started, 
 she was sorry to have invited him. He looked her 
 over grinningly, almost contemptuously. His un- 
 abashed eyes were as bright and hard as agates. Below 
 them, his nose was twisted a little, his mouth bent 
 insolently up at one corner, and his square long chin 
 bristled. 
 
I04 FREE AIR 
 
 Usually, too, her passengers waited for her to start 
 the conversation, and talked at Mr. Boltwood rather 
 than directly to her. But the bristly man spat at her as 
 the car started, " Going far ? " 
 
 " Ye-es, some distance." 
 
 " Expensive car ? " 
 
 " Why " 
 
 " 'Fraid of getting held up ? " 
 
 " I hadn't thought about it." 
 
 " Pack a cannon, don't you ? " 
 
 " I don't think I quite understand." 
 
 "Cannon! Gun I Revolver! Got a revolver, of 
 course ? " 
 
 " W-why, no." She spoke uncomfortably. She was 
 aware that his twinkling eyes were on her throat. His 
 look made her feel unclean. She tried to think of some 
 question which would lead the conversation to the 
 less exclamatory subject of crops. They were on a 
 curving shelf road beside a shallow valley. The road 
 was one side of a horseshoe ten miles long. The un- 
 protected edge of it dropped sharply to fields forty or 
 fifty feet below. 
 
 " Prosperous-looking wheat down there," she said. 
 
 " No. Not a bit ! " His look seemed to add, 
 " And you know it — ^unless you're a fool ! " 
 
 " Well, I didn't " 
 
 " Make Glendive tonight?" 
 
 " At least that far." 
 
FREE AIR 105 
 
 " Say, lady, how's the chance for borrowin' a couple 
 of dollars? I was workin' for a Finnski back here a 
 ways, and he did me dirt — holdin' out my wages on 
 me till the end of the month." 
 
 " Why, uh " 
 
 It was Claire, not the man, who was embarrassed. 
 
 He was snickering, " Come on, don't be a tightwad. 
 Swell car — poor man with no eats, not even a two- 
 bits flop for tonight. Could yuh loosen up and slip 
 me just a couple bones?" 
 
 Mr. Boltwood intervened. He looked as uncom- 
 fortable as Claire. " We'll see. It's rather against my 
 principles to give money to an able-bodied man like 
 you, even though it is a pleasure to give you a 
 ride " 
 
 " Sure ! Don't cost you one red cent ! " 
 
 " — and if I could help you get a job, though of 
 
 course Being a stranger out here Seems 
 
 strange to me, though," Mr. Boltwood struggled on, 
 " that a strong fellow like you should be utterly 
 destitute, when I see all these farmers able to have 
 cars " 
 
 Their guest instantly abandoned his attitude of 
 supplication for one of boasting: "Destitute? Who 
 the hell said I was destitute, heh ? " He was snarling 
 across Claire at Mr. Boltwood. His wet face was 
 five inches from hers. She drew her head as far back 
 as she could. She was sure that the man completely 
 
io6 FREEAIR 
 
 appreciated her distaste, for his eyes popped with 
 amusement before he roared on : 
 i" I got plenty of money ! Just 'cause I'm hoofin' 
 
 it I don't want no charity from nobody ! I could 
 
 buy out half these Honyockers ! I don't need none of 
 no man's money ! " He was efficiently working him- 
 self into a rage. "Who you calling destitute? All I 
 wanted was an advance till pay day! Got a check 
 coming. You high-tone, kid-glove Eastern towerists 
 want to watch out who you go calling destitute. I bet 
 I make a lot more money than a lot of your four- 
 flushin' friends ! " 
 
 Claire wondered if she couldn't stop the car now, 
 and tell him to get off. But — that snapping eye was 
 too vicious. Before he got ofif he would say things — 
 scarring, vile things, that would never heal in her 
 brain. Her father was murmuring, " Let's drop him," 
 but she softly lied, " No. His impertinence amuses 
 me. 
 
 She drove on, and prayed that he would of himself 
 leave his uncharitable hosts at the next town. 
 
 The man was storming — ^with a very meek ending : 
 " I'm tellin' you I I can make money anywhere ! I'm 
 a crack machinist. . . . Give me two-bits for a 
 meal, anyway." 
 
 Mr. Boltwood reached in his change pocket. He had 
 no quarter. He pulled out a plump bill-fold. With- 
 out looking at the man, Claire could vision his eyes 
 
FREE AIR 107 
 
 glistening and his chops dripping as he stared at the 
 hoard. Mr. Boltwood handed him a dollar bill. 
 " There, take that, and let's change the subject," said 
 Mr. Boltwood testily. 
 
 " All right, boss. Say, you haven't got a cartwheel 
 instead of this wrapping paper, have you? I like to 
 feel my money in my pocket." 
 
 " No, sir, I have not ! " 
 
 " All right, boss. No bad f eelin's ! " 
 
 Then he ignored Mr. Boltwood. His eyes focused 
 on Claire's face. To steady himself on the running- 
 board he had placed his left hand on the side of the 
 car, his right on the back of the seat. That right 
 hand slid behind her. She could feel its warmth on 
 her back. 
 
 She burst out, flaring, " Kindly do not touch me ! " 
 
 " Gee, did I touch you, girlie ? Why, that's a 
 shame!" he drawled, his cracked broad lips turning 
 up in a grin. 
 
 An instant later, as they skipped round a bend of 
 the long, high-hung shelf road, he pretended to sway 
 dangerously on the running-board, and deliberately 
 laid his filthy hand on her shoulder. Before she could 
 say anything he yelped in mock-regret, " Love o' 
 Mike! 'Scuse me, lady. I almost fell off." 
 
 Quietly, seriously, Claire said, " No, that wasn't 
 accidental. If you touch me again, I'll stop the car 
 and ask you to walk." 
 
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 " Better do it now, dolly ! " snapped Mr. Boltwood. 
 
 The man hooked his left arm about the side-post of 
 the open window-shield. It was a strong arm, a firm 
 grip. He seized her left wrist with his free hand. 
 Though all the while his eyes grotesquely kept their 
 amused sparkle, and beside them writhed laughter- 
 wrinkles, he shouted hoarsely, " You'll stop hell ! " 
 His hand slid from her wrist to the steering wheel. " I 
 can drive this boat 's well as you can. You make one 
 
 move to stop, and I steer her over Blooie ! Down 
 
 the bank!" 
 
 He did twist the front wheels dangerously near to 
 the outer edge of the shelf road. Mr. Boltwood gazed 
 at the hand on the wheel. With a quick breath Claire 
 looked at the side of the road. If the car ran off, it 
 would shoot down forty feet .... turning over and 
 over. 
 
 " Y-you wouldn't dare, because you'd g-go, too ! " 
 she panted. 
 
 "Well, dearuh, you just try any monkey-business 
 and you'll find out how much I'll gggggggo-too ! I'll 
 start you down the joy-slope and jump off, savvy? 
 Take your foot ofif that clutch." 
 
 She obeyed. 
 
 " Pretty lil feet, ain't they, cutie ! Shoes cost 
 about twelve bucks, I reckon. While a better man 
 than you or old moldy-face there has to hit the pike 
 in three-dollar brogans. Sit down, yuh fool ! " 
 
FREE AIR 109 
 
 This last to Mr. Boltwood, who had stood up, 
 swaying with the car, and struck at him. With a 
 huge arm the man swept Mr. Boltwood back into the 
 seat, but without a word to her father, he continued 
 to Claire: 
 
 " And keep your hand where it belongs. Don't go 
 trying to touch that switch. Aw, be sensible ! What 
 would you do if the car did stop? I could blackjack 
 you both before this swell-elegant vehickle lost mo- 
 mentum, savvy? I don't want to pay out my good 
 money to a lawyer on a charge of — murder. Get me? 
 Better take it easy and not worry." His hand was 
 constantly on the wheel. He had driven cars before. 
 He was steering as much as she. " When I get you up 
 the road a piece I'm going to drive all the cute HI 
 boys and girls up a side trail, and take all of papa's 
 gosh-what-a-wad in the cunnin' potet-book, and I guess 
 we'll kiss HI daughter, and drive on, a-wavin' our 
 hand politely, and let you suckers walk to the next 
 burg." 
 
 " You wouldn't dare ! You wouldn't dare ! " 
 
 " Dare ? Huh ! Don't make the driver laugh ! " 
 
 "I'll get help!" 
 
 " Yep. Sure. Fact, there's a car comin' toward 
 us. 'Bout a mile away I'd make it, wouldn't you? 
 Well, doll face, if you make one peep — over the bank 
 you go, both of you dead as a couplin'-pin. Smeared 
 all over those rocks. Get me? And me — I'll be sorry 
 
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 the regrettable accident was so naughty and went and 
 happened^-and I just got off in time meself. And I'll 
 pinch papa's poke while I'm helping get out the 
 bodies 1 " 
 
 Till now she hadn't believed it. But she dared not 
 glance at the approaching car. It was their interesting 
 guest who steered the Gomez past the other; and he 
 ran rather too near the edge of the road ... so 
 that she looked over, down. 
 
 Beaming, he went on, " I'd pull the rough stuff right 
 here, instead of wastin' my time as a cap'n of industry 
 by taking you up to see the scenery in that daisy little 
 gully off the road; but the whole world can see us 
 along here — the hicks in the valley and anybody that 
 happens to sneak along in a car behind us. Shame the 
 way this road curves — see too far along it. Fact, 
 you're giving me a lot of trouble. But you'll give me 
 a kiss, won't you, Gwendolyn?" 
 
 He bent down, chuckling. She could feel his bristly 
 chin touch her cheek. She sprang up, struck at him. 
 He raised his hand from the wheel. For a second the 
 car ran without control. He jabbed her back into the 
 seat with his elbow. " Don't try any more monkey- 
 shines, if you know what's good for you," he said, 
 quite peacefully, as he resumed steering. 
 
 She was in a haze, conscious only of her father's 
 hand fondling hers. She heard a quick pit-pit-pit-pit 
 behind them. Car going to pass ? She'd have to let it 
 
FREE AIR III 
 
 go by. She'd concentrate on finding something she 
 
 could 
 
 Then, "Hello, folks. Having a picnic? Who's 
 your little friend in the rompers ? " sang out a voice 
 beside them. It was Milt Daggett — the Milt who 
 must be scores of miles ahead. His bug had caught 
 up with them, was running even with them on the 
 broad road. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE HILLSIDE 
 
 ROAD 
 
 SO unexpectedly, so genially, that Claire wondered 
 if he realized what was happening, Milt chuckled 
 to the tough on the running-board, as the two cars 
 ran side by side, " Bound for some place, brother?" 
 
 The unwelcome guest looked puzzled. For the 
 first time his china eyes ceased twinkling; and he 
 answered dubiously : " Just gettin' a lift." He sped up 
 the car with the hand-throttle. Milt accelerated 
 equally. 
 
 Claire roused; wanted to shout. She was palsied 
 afraid that Milt would leave them. The last time she 
 had seen him, she had suggested that leaving them 
 would be a favor. 
 
 Her guest growled at her — the words coming 
 through a slit at the corner of his rowdy mouth, " Sit 
 still, or I'll run you over." 
 
 Milt innocently babbled on, " Better come ride with 
 me, 'bo. More room in this-here handsome coupelet." 
 
 Then was the rough relieved in his uneasy tender 
 little heart, and his eyes flickered again as he shouted 
 back, not looking at Milt, " Thanks, bub, I'll stick by 
 me friends." 
 
 112 
 
FREE AIR 113 
 
 " Oh no ; can't lose pleasure of your company. I 
 like your looks. You're a bloomin' little island 
 way off on the dim silver skyline." Claire knitted 
 her brows. She had not seen Milt's rhetoric. " You're 
 an island of Hesperyds or Hesperides. Accent on the 
 bezuzus. Oh, yes, moondream, I think you better 
 come. Haven't decided " — Milt's tone was bland — 
 " whether to kill you or just have you pinched. Miss 
 Boltwood ! Switch off your power ! " 
 
 " If she does," the tough shouted, " I'll run 'em off 
 the bank." 
 
 "No, you won't, sweetheart, 'cause why? 'Cause 
 what'll I do to you afterwards?" 
 
 " You won't do no thin'. Jack, 'cause I'd gouge your 
 eyes out." 
 
 " Why, lovesoul, d' you suppose I'd be talking up 
 as brash as this to a bid, stwong man like 00 if I 
 didn't have a gun handy?" 
 
 " Yuh, I guess so, HI sunbeam. And before you 
 could shoot, I'd crowd your tin liz into the bank, and 
 jam right into it! I may get killed, but you won't 
 even be a grease-spot ! " 
 
 He was turning the Gomez from its straight course, 
 forcing Milt's bug toward the high bank of earth 
 which walled in the road on the left. 
 
 While Claire was very sick with fear, then more 
 sick with contempt. Milt squealed, " You win ! " And 
 he had dropped back. The Gomez was going on alone. 
 
114 FREE AIR 
 
 There was only one thing more for Claire — to jump. 
 And that meant death. 
 
 The tough was storming, "Your friend's a crack 
 shot — with his mouth ! " 
 
 The thin pit-pit-pit was coming again. She looked 
 back. She saw Milt's bug snap forward so fast that 
 on a bump its light wheels were in the air. She saw 
 Milt standing on the right side of the bug holding the 
 wheel with one hand, and the other hand — firm, grim, 
 broad-knuckled hand — outstretched toward the tough, 
 then snatching at his collar. 
 
 The tough's grip was torn from the steering wheel. 
 He was yanked from the running-board. He crunched 
 down on the road. 
 
 She seized the wheel. She drove on at sixty miles 
 an hour. She had gone a good mile before she got 
 control of her fear and halted. She saw Milt turn 
 his little car as though it were a prancing bronco. It 
 seemed to paw the air with its front wheels. He shot 
 back, pursuing the late guest. The man ran bobbing 
 along the road. At this distance he was no longer 
 formidable, but a comic, jerking, rabbity figure, hump- 
 ing himself over the back track. 
 
 As the bug whirled down on him, the tough was to 
 be seen throwing up his hands, leaping from the high 
 bank. 
 
 Milt turned again and came toward them, but 
 slowly; and after he had drawn up even and switched 
 
FREE AIR 115 
 
 off the engine, he snatched off his violent plaid cap 
 and looked apologetic. 
 
 " Sorry I had to kid him along. I was afraid he 
 really would drive you off the bank. He was a bad 
 actor. And he was right; he could have licked me. 
 Thought maybe I could jolly him into getting off, and 
 have him pinched, next town." 
 
 " But you had a gun — a revolver — didn't you, 
 lad?" panted Mr. Boltwood. 
 
 " Um, wellllll I've got a shotgun. It wouldn't 
 
 take me more 'n five or ten minutes to dig it out, and 
 put it together. And there's some shells. They may 
 be all right. Haven't looked at 'em since last fall. 
 They didn't get so awful damp then." 
 
 " But suppose he'd had a revolver himself? " wailed 
 Claire. 
 
 " Gee, you know, I thought he probably did have 
 one. I was scared blue. I had a wrench to throw at 
 him though," confided Milt. 
 
 " How did you know we needed you ? " 
 
 " Why back there, couple miles behind you, maybe 
 I saw your father get up and try to wrestle him, so I 
 suspected there was kind of a disagreement. Say, 
 Miss Boltwood, you know when you spoke to me — 
 way back there — I hadn't meant to butt in. Hon- 
 est. I thought maybe as we were going " 
 
 "Oh, I know!" 
 
 " — ^the same way, you wouldn't mind my trailing, 
 
ii6 FREE AIR 
 
 if I didn't sit in too often; and I thought maybe I 
 could help you if " 
 
 " Oh, I know ! I'm so ashamed ! So bitterly 
 
 ashamed! I just meant Will you forgive me? 
 
 You were so good, taking care of us " 
 
 "Oh, sure, that's all right!" 
 
 " I fancy you do know how grateful father and I 
 are that you were behind us, this time! Wasn't it a 
 lucky accident that we'd slipped past you some place ! " 
 
 " Yes," dryly, " quite an accident. Well, I'll skip 
 on ahead again. May run into you again before we 
 hit Seattle. Going to take the run through Yellow- 
 stone Park?" 
 
 " Yes, but " began Claire. Her father inter- 
 rupted : 
 
 "Uh, Mr., uh — Daggett, was it? — I wonder if you 
 won't stay a little closer to us hereafter? I was get- 
 ting rather a good change out of the trip, but I'm 
 
 afraid that now If it wouldn't be an insult, I'd 
 
 beg you to consider staying with us for a considera- 
 tion, uh, you know, remuneration, and you could " 
 
 " Thanks, uh, thank you, sir, but I wouldn't like to 
 do it. You see, it's kind of my vacation. If I've done 
 anything I'm tickled " 
 
 " But perhaps," Mr. Boltwood ardently begged the 
 young man recently so abysmally unimportant, " per- 
 haps you would consent to being my guest, when you 
 cared to — say at hotels in the Park." 
 
FREE AIR 117 
 
 " 'Fraid I couldn't. I'm kind of a lone wolf." 
 
 "Please! Pretty please!" besought Claire. Her 
 smile was appealing, her eyes on his. 
 
 Milt bit his knuckles. He looked weak. But he 
 persisted, " No, you'll get over this scrap with our 
 friend. By the way, I'll put the deputy onto him, in 
 the next town. He'll never get out of the county. 
 
 When you forget him Oh no, you can go on fine. 
 
 You're a good steady driver, and the road's perfectly 
 safe — if you give people the once-over before you pick 
 'em up. Picking up badmen is no more dangerous 
 here than it would be in New York. Fact, there's lot 
 more hold-ups in any city than in the wildest country. 
 I don't think you showed such awfully good taste in 
 asking Terrible Tim, the two-gun man, right into the 
 parlor. Gee, please don't do it again ! Please ! " 
 
 " No," meekly. " I was an idiot. I'll be good, 
 next time. But won't you stay somewhere near us? " 
 
 " I'd like to, but I got to chase on. Don't want to 
 wear out the welcome on the doormat, and I'm due in 
 
 Seattle, and Say, Miss Boltwood." He swung 
 
 out of the bug, cranked up, climbed back, went awk- 
 wardly on, " I read those books you gave me. They're 
 slick — mean to say, interesting. Where that young 
 fellow in Youth's Encounter wanted to be a bishop 
 
 and a soldier and everything Just like me, except 
 
 Schoenstrom is different, from London, some ways! 
 I always wanted to be a brakie, and then a yeggraan. 
 
ii8 FREE AIR 
 
 But I wasn't bright enough for either. I just became 
 
 a garage man. And I Some day I'm going to 
 
 stop using slang. But it'll take an operation ! " 
 
 He was streaking down the road, and Claire was 
 sobbing, " Oh, the lamb, the darling thing ! Fretting 
 about his slang, when he wasn't afraid in that horrible 
 nightmare. If we could just do something for him! " 
 
 " Don't you worry about him, dolly. He's a very 
 
 energetic chap. And Uh Mightn't we 
 
 drive on a little farther, perhaps? I confess that the 
 thought of our recent guest still in this vicinity " 
 
 " Yes, and Oh, I'm shameless. If Mohammed 
 
 Milton won't stay with our car mountain, we're going 
 to tag after him." 
 
 But when she reached the next hill, with its far 
 shining outlook, there was no Milt and no TeaJ bug 
 on the road ahead. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SAGEBRUSH TOURISTS OF THE GREAT 
 HIGHWAY 
 
 SHE had rested for two days in Miles City; had 
 seen the horse-market, with horse-wranglers in 
 chaps; had taken dinner with army people at Fort 
 Keogh, once the bulwark against the Sioux, now nod- 
 ding over the dry grass on its parade ground. 
 
 By the Yellowstone River, past the Crow reserva- 
 tion, Claire had driven on through the Real West, 
 along the Great Highway. The Red Trail and the 
 Yellowstone Trail had joined now and she was one of 
 the new Canterbury Pilgrims. Even Mr. Boltwood 
 caught the trick of looking for licenses, and cried, 
 " There's a Connecticut car! " 
 
 To the Easterner, a drive from New York to Cape 
 Cod, over asphalt, is viewed as heroic, but here were 
 cars that had casually started on thousand-mile vaca- 
 tions. She kept pace not only with large cars touring 
 from St. Louis or Detroit to Glacier Park and Yellow- 
 stone, but also she found herself companionable with 
 families of workmen, headed for a new town and a 
 new job, and driving because a flivver, bought second- 
 hand and soon to be sold again, was cheaper than 
 trains. 
 
 " Sagebrush Tourists " these camping adventurers 
 119 
 
I20 FREE AIR 
 
 were called. Claire became used to small cars, with 
 curtain-lights broken, bearing wash-boilers or re- 
 frigerators on the back, pastboard suitcases lashed by 
 rope to the running-board, frying pans and canvas 
 water bottles dangling from top-rods. And once 
 baby's personal laundry was seen flapping on a line 
 across a tonneau! 
 
 In each car was what looked like the crowd at a 
 large farm-auction — grandfather, father, mother, a 
 couple of sons and two or three daughters, at least 
 one baby in the arras of each grown-up, all jammed 
 into two seats already filled with trunks and baby- 
 carriages. And they were happy — incredibly happier 
 than the smart people being conveyed in a bored way 
 behind chauffeurs. 
 
 The Sagebrush Tourists made camp; covered the 
 hood with a quilt from which the cotton was oozing; 
 brought out the wash-boiler, did a washing, had din- 
 ner, sang about the fire; granther and the youngest 
 baby gamboling together, while the limousinvalids, in- 
 sulated from life by plate glass, preserved by their 
 steady forty an hour from the commonness of seeing 
 anything along the road, looked out at the campers 
 for a second, sniffed, rolled on, wearily wondering 
 whether they would find a good hotel that night — and 
 why the deuce they hadn't come by train. 
 
 If Claire Boltwood had been protected by Jeff 
 Saxton or by a chauffeur, she, too, would probably 
 
FREE AIR 121 
 
 have marveled at cars gray with dust, the unshaved 
 men in fleece-lined duck coats, and the women wind- 
 burnt beneath the boudoir caps they wore as motoring 
 bonnets. But Claire knew now that filling grease-cups 
 does not tend to delicacy of hands; that when you 
 wash with a cake of petrified pink soap and half a 
 pitcher of cold hard water, you never quite get the 
 stain off — you merely get through the dust stratum 
 to the Laurentian grease formation, and mutter, " a 
 nice clean grease doesn't hurt food," and go sleepily 
 down to dinner. 
 
 She saw a dozen camping devices unknown to the 
 East : trailers, which by day bobbed along behind the 
 car like coffins on two wheels, but at night opened into 
 tents with beds, an ice-box, a table; tents covering a 
 bed whose head rested on the running-board; beds 
 made-up in the car, with the cushions as mattresses. 
 
 The Great Transcontinental Highway was colored 
 not by motors alone. It is true that the Old West of 
 the stories is almost gone; that Billings, Miles City, 
 Bismarck, are more given to Doric banks than to 
 gambling hells. But still are there hints of frontier 
 days. Still trudge the prairie schooners; cowpunchers 
 in chaps still stand at the doors of log cabins — when 
 they are tired of playing the automatic piano; and 
 blanket Indians, Blackfeet and Crows, stare at five- 
 story buildings — when they are not driving modern 
 reapers on their farms. 
 
122 FREE AIR 
 
 They all waved to Claire. Telephone linemen, loll- 
 ing with pipes and climber-strapped legs in big trucks, 
 sang out to her; traction engine crews shouted; and 
 these she found to be her own people. Only once did 
 she lose contentment — when, on the observation plat- 
 form of a train bound for Seattle, she saw a Britisher 
 in flannels and a monocle, headed perhaps for the 
 Orient. As the train slipped silkenly away, the Gomez 
 seemed slow and clumsy, and the strain of driving 
 
 intolerable. And that Britisher must be charming 
 
 Then a lonely, tight-haired woman in the doorway of 
 a tar-paper shack waved to her, and in that wistful 
 gesture Claire found friendship. 
 
 And sometimes in the " desert " of yet unbroken 
 land she paused by the Great Highway and forgot 
 the passion to keep going 
 
 She sat on a rock, by a river so muddy that it was 
 like yellow milk. The only trees vi^ere a bunch of cot- 
 tonwoods untidily scattering shreds of cotton, and 
 the only other vegetation left in the dead world was 
 dusty green sagebrush with lumps of gray yet preg- 
 nant earth between, or a few exquisite green and white 
 flashes of the herb called Snow-on-the-Mountain. The 
 inhabitants were jackrabbits, or American magpies in 
 sharp black and white livery, forever trying to balance 
 their huge tails against the wind, and yelling in low- 
 magpie their opinion of tourists. 
 
 She did not desire gardens, then, nor the pettiness 
 
FREE AIR 123 
 
 of plump terraced hills. She was in the Real West, 
 and it was hers, since she had won to it by her own 
 plodding. Her soul — if she hadn't had one, it would 
 immediately have been provided, by special arrange- 
 ment, the moment she sat there — sailed with the hawks 
 in the high thin air, and when it came down it sang 
 hallelujahs, because the sagebrush fragrance was more 
 healing than piney woods, because the sharp-bitten 
 edges of the buttes were coral and gold and basalt and 
 turquoise, and because a real person, one Milt Daggett, 
 though she would never see him again, had found her 
 worthy of worship. 
 
 She did not often think of Milt; she did not know 
 whether he was ahead of her, or had again dropped 
 behind. When she did recall him, it was with respect 
 quite different from the titillation that dancing men 
 had sometimes aroused, or the impression of mani- 
 cured agreeableness and efficiency which Jeff Saxton 
 carried about. 
 
 She always supplicated the mythical Milt in moments 
 of tight driving. Driving, just the actual getting on, 
 was her purpose in life, and the routine of driving was 
 her order of the day: Morning freshness, rolling up 
 as many miles as possible before lunch, that she might 
 loaf afterward. The invariable two p.m. discovery 
 that her eyes ached, and the donning of huge amber 
 glasses, vv^hich gave to her lithe smartness a counter- 
 feit scholarliness. Toward night, the quarter-hour of 
 
124 FREE AIR 
 
 kvel sun-glare which prevented her seeing the road. 
 Dusk, and the discovery of how much light there was 
 after all, once she remembered to take off her glasses. 
 The worst quarter-hour when, though the roads were 
 an amethyst rich to the artist, they were also a murki- 
 ness exasperating to the driver, yet still too light to be 
 thrown into relief by the lamps. The mystic moment 
 when night clicked tight, and the lamps made a fan 
 of gold, and Claire and her father settled down to 
 plodding content — and no longer had to take the 
 trouble of admiring the scenery! 
 
 The morning out of Billings, she wondered why a 
 low cloud so persistently held its shape, and realized 
 that it was a far-off mountain, her first sight of the 
 Rockies. Then she cried out, and wished for Milt to 
 share her exultation. Rather earnestly she said to 
 Mr. Boltwood: 
 
 " The mountains must be so wonderful to Mr. Dag- 
 gett, after spending his life in a cornfield. Poor Milt! 
 I hope " 
 
 " I don't think you need to worry about that young 
 man. I fancy he's quite able to run about by himself, 
 as jolly as a sand-dog. And Of course I'm ex- 
 tremely grateful to him for his daily rescue of us from 
 the jaws of death, but he was right; if he had stayed 
 with us, it would have been inconvenient to keep 
 considering him. He isn't accustomed to th*", comedy 
 jof manners " 
 
FREE AIR 125 
 
 " He ought to be. He'd enjoy it so. He's the real 
 American. He has imagination and adaptability. It's 
 a shame : all the petits fours and Bach recitals wasted 
 on Jeff Saxton. when a Milt Dag " 
 
 "Yes, yes, quite so! " 
 
 " No, honest ! The dear honey-lamb, so ingenious, 
 and really, rather good-looking. But so lonely and 
 gregarious — like a little woolly dog that begs you to 
 come and play; and I slapped him when he patted his 
 
 paws and gamboled It was horrible. I'll never 
 
 forgive myself. Making him drive on ahead in that 
 
 nasty, patronizing way I feel as if we'd spoiled 
 
 his holiday. I wonder if he had intended to make the 
 Yellowstone Park trip ? He didn't " 
 
 " Yes, yes. Let's forget the young man. Look ! 
 How very curious ! " 
 
 They were crossing a high bridge over a railroad 
 track along which a circus train was bending. Mr. 
 Boltwood offered judicious remarks upon the migra- 
 tory habits of circuses, and the vision of the Galahad 
 of the Teal bug was thoroughly befogged by parental 
 observations, till Claire returned from youthful 
 romance to being a sensible Boltwood, and decided that 
 after all, Milt was not a lord of the sky-painted moun- 
 tains. 
 
 Before they bent south, at Livingston, Claire had 
 her first mountain driving, and once she had to ford a 
 stream, putting the car at it, watching the water curve 
 
126 FREE AIR 
 
 up in a lovely silver veil. She felt that she was con- 
 quering the hills as she had the prairies. 
 
 She pulled up on a plateau to look at her battery. 
 She noted the edge of a brake-band peeping beyond the 
 drum, in a ragged line of fabric and copper wire. 
 Then she knew that she didn't know enough to con- 
 quer. " Do you suppose it's dangerous ? " she asked 
 her father, who said a lot of comforting things that 
 didn't mean anything. 
 
 She thought of Milt. She stopped a passing car. 
 The driver " guessed " that the brake-band was all 
 gone, and that it would be dangerous to continue with 
 it along mountain roads. Claire dustily tramped two 
 miles to a ranch house, and telephoned to the nearest 
 garage, in a town called .Saddle Back. 
 
 Whenever a motorist has delirium he mutters those 
 lamentable words, " Telephoned to the nearest garage." 
 
 She had to wait a tedious hour before she saw a 
 flivver rattling up with the garage man, who wasn't a 
 man at all, but a fourteen-year-old boy. He snorted, 
 " Rats, you didn't need to send for me. Could have 
 made it perfectly safe. Come on." 
 
 Never has the greatest boy pianist received such awe 
 as Claire gave to this contemptuous young god, with 
 grease on his peachy cheeks. She did come on. But 
 she rather hoped that she was in great danger. It 
 was humiliating to telephone to a garage for nothing. 
 When she came into the gas-smelling garage in Saddle 
 
FREE AIR 127 
 
 Back she said appealingly to the man in charge, a seri- 
 ous, lip-puffing person of forty-five, " Was it safe to 
 come in with the brake-band like that? " 
 
 "No. Pretty risky. Wa'n't it, Mike ? " 
 
 The Mike to whom he turned for authority was the 
 same fourteen-year-old boy. He snapped, " Heh ? 
 That? Naw! Put in new band. Get busy. Bring 
 me the jack. Hustle up, uncle." 
 
 While the older man stood about and vainly tried 
 to impress people who came in and asked questions 
 which invariably had to be referred to his repair boy, 
 the precocious expert stripped the wheel down to 
 something that looked to Claire distressingly like an 
 empty milk-pan. Then the boy didn't seem to know 
 exactly what to do. He scratched his ear a good deal, 
 and thought deeply. The older man could only scratch. 
 
 So for two hours Claire and her father experienced 
 that most distressing of motor experiences — waiting, 
 while the afternoon that would have been so good for 
 driving went by them. Every fifteen minutes they 
 came in from sitting on a dry-goods box in front of 
 the garage, and never did the repair appear to be any 
 farther along. The boy seemed to be giving all his 
 time to getting the wrong wrench, and scolding the 
 older man for having hidden the right one. 
 
 When she had left Brooklyn Heights, Claire had 
 not expected to have such authoritative knowledge of 
 the Kalifornia Kandy Kitchen, Saddle Back, Montana, 
 
128 FREE AIR 
 
 across from Tubbs' Garage, that she could tell whether 
 they were selling more Atharva Cigarettes or Polu- 
 tropons. She prowled about the garage till she knew 
 every pool of dripped water in the tin pail of soft 
 soap in the iron sink. 
 
 She was worried by an overheard remark of the 
 boy wonder, " Gosh, we haven't any more of that 
 decent brake lining. Have to use this piece of mush." 
 But when the car was actually done, nothing like a 
 dubious brake could have kept her from the glory 
 of starting. The first miles seemed miracles of ease 
 and speed. 
 • She came through the mountains into Livingston. 
 
 Kicking his heels on a fence near town, and 
 fondling a gray cat, sat Milt Daggett, and he yelped 
 at her with earnestness and much noise. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE WONDERS OF NATURE WITH ALL 
 MODERN IMPROVEMENTS 
 
 "TTELLO!" said Milt. 
 L~L "Hel-lo!" said Claire. 
 
 " How dee do," said Mr. Boltwood. 
 
 " This is so nice ! Where's your car ? I hope 
 nothing's happened," glowed Claire. 
 
 " No. It's back here from the road a piece. Camp 
 
 there tonight. Reason I stopped Struck me 
 
 you've never done any mountain driving, and there's 
 some pretty good climbs in the Park; slick road, but 
 we go up to almost nine thousand feet. And cold 
 mornings. Thought I'd tip you off to some driving 
 tricks — if you'd like me to." 
 
 " Oh, of course. Very grateful " 
 
 " Then I'll tag after you tomorrow, and speak my 
 piece." 
 
 " So jolly you're going through the Park." 
 
 "Yes, thought might as well. What the guide 
 books call 'Wonders of Nature.' Only wonder of 
 nature I ever saw in Schoenstrom was my friend Mac 
 trying to think he was soused after a case of near- 
 beer. Well See you tomorrow." 
 
 Not once had he smiled. His tone had been im- 
 personal. He vaulted the fence and tramped away. 
 
 129 
 
I30 FREE AIR 
 
 When they drove out of town, in the morning, they 
 found Milt waiting by the road, and he followed them 
 till noon. By urgent request, he shared a lunch, and 
 lectured upon going down long grades in first or second 
 speed, to save brakes; upon the use of the retarded 
 spark and the slipped clutch in climbing. His bug was 
 beside the Gomez in the line-up at the Park gate, when 
 the United States Army came to seal one's firearms, 
 and to inquire on which mountain one intended to be 
 killed by defective brakes. He was just behind her all 
 the climb up to Mammoth Hot Springs. 
 
 When she paused for water to cool the boiling radi- 
 ator, the bug panted up, and with the first grin she had 
 seen on his face since Dakota Milt chuckled, " The 
 Teal is a grand car for mountains. Aside from over- 
 heating, bum lights, thin upholstery, faulty ignition, 
 tissue-paper brake-bands, and this-here special aviation 
 engine, specially built for a bumble-bee, it's what the 
 catalogues call a powerful brute ! " 
 
 Claire and her father stayed at the chain of hotels 
 through the Park. Milt was always near them, but 
 not at the hotels. He patronized one of the chains of 
 permanent camps. 
 
 The Boltwoods invited him to dinner at one hotel, 
 but he refused and 
 
 Because he was afraid that Claire would find him 
 intrusive, Milt was grave in her presence. He couldn't 
 
FREE AIR 131 
 
 respond either to her enthusiasm about canyon and 
 colored pool — or to her rage about the tourists who, 
 she alleged, preferred freak museum pieces to plain 
 beauty ; who never admired a view unless it was labeled 
 by a signpost and megaphoned by a guide as something 
 they ought to admire — and tell the Folks Back Home 
 about. 
 
 When she tried to express this social rage to Milt he 
 merely answered uneasily, " Yes, I guess there's some- 
 thing to that." 
 
 She was, he pondered, so darn particular. How 
 could he ever figure out what he ought to do? No 
 thanks; much obliged, but guessed he'd better not ac- 
 cept her invitation to dinner. Darn sorry couldn't 
 
 come but Had promised a fellow down at the 
 
 camp to have chow with him. 
 
 If in this Milt was veracious, he was rather fickle 
 to his newly discovered friend; for while Claire was 
 finishing dinner, a solemn young man was watching 
 her through a window. 
 
 She was at a table for six. She was listening to a 
 man of thirty in riding-breeches, a stock, and a pointed 
 nose, who bowed to her every time he spoke, which 
 was so frequently that his dining gave the impression 
 of a man eating grape-fruit on a merry-go-round. 
 Back in Schoenstrom, fortified by Mac and the bunch 
 at the Old Home Lunch, Milt would have called the 
 man a " dude," and — though less noisily than the 
 
132 FREE AIR 
 
 others — would have yelped, " Get onto Percy's beer- 
 bottle pants. What's he got his neck bandaged for? 
 Bet he's got a boil." 
 
 But now Milt yearned, " He does look swell. Wish 
 I could get away with those things. Wouldn't I look 
 like a fool with my knees buttoned up, though ! And 
 there's two other fellows in dress suits. Wouldn't 
 mind those so much. Gee, it must be awful where 
 you've got so many suits of trick clothes you don't 
 know which one to wear. 
 
 " That fellow and Claire are talking pretty swift. 
 He doesn't need any piston rings, that lad. Wonder 
 — ^wonder what they're talking about? Music, I guess, 
 and books and pictures and scenery. He's saying that 
 no tongue or pen can describe the glories of the Park, 
 and then he's trying to describe 'em. And maybe they 
 know the same folks in New York. Lord, how I'd 
 be out of it. I wish " 
 
 Milt made a toothpick out of a match, decided that 
 toothpicks were inelegant in his tragic mood, and 
 longed : " Never did see her among her own kind of 
 folks till now. I wish I could jabber about music and 
 stuff. I'll learn it. I will ! I can ! I picked up autos 
 
 in three months. I Milt, you're a dub. I wonder 
 
 can they be talking French, maybe, or Wop, or some- 
 thing? I could get onto the sedan styles in highbrow 
 talk as long as it was in American. ; 
 
 " I could probably spring linen-collar stuff about^ 
 
FREE AIR 133 
 
 ' Really a delightful book, so full of delightful char- 
 acters,' if I stuck by the rhetoric books long enough. 
 But once they begin the parlez-vous, out, oui, I'm a 
 gone goose. Still, by golly, didn't I pick up Dutch 
 — German — like a mice? Back off, son! You did 
 not! You can talk Plattdeutsch something grand, as 
 long as you keep the verbs and nouns in American. 
 You got a nice character. Milt, but you haven't got any 
 parts of speech. 
 
 " Now look at Percy ! Taking a bath in a finger- 
 bowl. I never could pull that finger-bowl stuff; pin- 
 ning your ears back and jiu-jitsing the fried chicken, 
 and then doing a high dive into a little dish that ain't 
 — that isn't either a wash-bowl or real good lemonade. 
 He's a perfect lady, Percy is. Dabs his mouth with 
 his napkin like a watchmaker tinkering the carburetor 
 in a wrist watch. 
 
 " Lookit him bow and scrape — asking her some- 
 thing Rats, he's going out in the lobby with her. 
 
 Walks like a cat on a wet ash-pile. But Oh 
 
 thunder, he's all right. Neat. I never could mingle 
 with that bunch. I'd be web-footed and butter- 
 fingered. And he seems to know all that bunch — 
 bows to every maiden aunt in the shop. Now if I was 
 following her, I'd never see anybody but her; rest of 
 the folks could all bob their heads silly, and I'd never 
 see one blame thing except that funny little soft spot 
 at the back of her neck. Nope, you're kind to your 
 
134 FREE AIR 
 
 cat, Milt, but you weren't cut out to be no parlor- 
 organ duet." 
 
 This same meditative young man might have been 
 discovered walking past the porch of the hotel, his 
 hands in his pockets, his eyes presumably on the stars 
 — certainly he gave no signs of watching Claire and 
 the man in riding-breeches as they leaned over the 
 rail, looked at mountain-tops filmy in starlight, while 
 in the cologne-atomized mode. Breeches quoted : 
 
 Ah, 'tis far heaven my awed heart seeks 
 When I behold those mighty peaks. 
 
 Milt could hear him commenting, " Doesn't that 
 just get the feeling of the great open. Miss Bolt- 
 wood?" 
 
 Milt did not catch her answer. Himself, he 
 grunted, " I never could get much het up about this 
 poetry that's full of Ah's and 'tises." 
 
 Claire must have seen Milt just after he had saun- 
 tered past. She cried, " Oh, Mr. Daggett ! Just a 
 moment!" She left Breeches, ran down to Milt. He 
 was frightened. Was he going to get what he de- 
 served for eavesdropping? 
 
 She was almost whispering. " Save me from our 
 friend up on the porch," she implored. 
 
 He couldn't believe it. But he took a chance. 
 " Won't you have a little walk ? " he roared. 
 
 "So nice of you — just a little way, perhaps?" she 
 sang out. 
 
FREE AIR 135 
 
 They were silent till he got up the nerve to ad- 
 mire, " Glad you found some people you knew in the 
 hotel." 
 
 " But I didn't." 
 
 " Oh, I thought your friend in the riding-pants was 
 chummy." 
 
 " So did I ! " She rather snorted. 
 
 " Well, he's a nice-looking lad. I did admire those 
 pants. I never could wear anything like that." 
 
 " I should hope not — at dinner ! The creepy jack- 
 ass, I don't believe he's ever been on a horse in his 
 life ! He thinks riding-breeches are the " 
 
 " Oh, that's it. Breeches, not pants." 
 
 " — last word in smartness. Overdressing is just 
 ten degrees worse than underdressing." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. Take this sloppy old blue suit 
 of mine " 
 
 " It's perfectly nice and simple, and quite well cut. 
 You probably had a clever tailor." 
 
 " I had. He lives in Chicago or New York, I be- 
 lieve." 
 
 " Really ? How did he come to Schoenstrom ? " 
 
 " Never been there. This tailor is a busy boy. He 
 fitted about eleventeen thousand people, last year." 
 
 " I see. Ready mades. Cheer up. That's where 
 Henry B. Boltwood gets most of his clothes. Mr. 
 Daggett, if ever I catch you in the Aren't-I-beautiful 
 frame of mind of our friend back on the porch, I'll 
 give up my trip to struggle for your soul." 
 
136 FREE AIR 
 
 " He seemed to have soul in large chunks. He 
 seemed to talk pretty painlessly. I had a hunch you 
 and he were discussing sculpture, anyway. Maybe 
 Rodin." 
 
 " What do you know about Rodin? " 
 
 " Articles in the magazines. Same place you learned 
 about him ! " But Milt did not sound rude. He said 
 it chucklingly. 
 
 " You're perfectly right. And we've probably read 
 the very same articles. Well, our friend back there 
 said to me at dinner, ' It must be dreadful for you 
 to have to encounter so many common people along 
 the road.' I said, ' It is,' in the most insulting tone I 
 could, and he just rolled his eyes, and hadn't an idea 
 I meant him. Then he slickered his hair at me, and 
 mooed, ' Is it not wonderful to see all these strange 
 manifestations of the secrets of Nature ! ' and I said, 
 ' Is it? ' and he went on, ' One feels that if one could 
 but meet a sympathetic lady here, one's cup of re- 
 joicing in untrammeled nature ' Honest, Milt, Mr. 
 
 Daggett, I mean, he did talk like that. Been reading 
 books by optimistic lady authors. And one looked at 
 me, one did, as if one would be willing to hold my 
 hand, if I let one. 
 
 " He invited me to come out on the porch and give 
 the double O. to handsome mountains as illuminated 
 by terrestrial bodies, and I felt so weak in the presence 
 of his conceit that I couldn't refuse. Then he insisted 
 
FREE AIR 137 
 
 on introducing me to a woman from my own Brookl3'n, 
 who condoled with me for having to talk to Western 
 persons while motoring. Oh, dear God, that such 
 people should live . . . that the sniffy little Claire 
 should once have been permitted to live! . . . And 
 then I saw you ! " 
 
 Through all her tirade they had stood close to- 
 gether, her face visibly eager in the glow from the 
 hotel; and Milt had grown taller. But he responded, 
 " I'm afraid I might have been just as bad. I haven't 
 even reached the riding-breeches stage in evolution. 
 Maybe never will." 
 
 " No. You won't. You'll go right through it. 
 By and by, when you're so rich that father and I 
 won't be allowed to associate with you, you'll wear 
 riding-breeches — ^but for riding, not as a donation to 
 the beauties of nature." 
 
 " Oh, I'm already rich. It shows. Waitress down 
 at the camp asked me whose car I was driving 
 through." 
 
 " I know what I wanted to say. Since you won't 
 be our guest, will you be our host — I mean, as far 
 as welcoming us ? I think it would be fun for father 
 and me to stop at your camp, tomorrow night, at the 
 canyon, instead of at the hotel. Will you guide me 
 to the canyon, if I do? " 
 
 "Oh— terribly— glad!" 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 ADVENTURERS BY FIRELIGHT 
 
 NEITHER of the Boltwoods had seen the Grand 
 Canyon of the Colorado. The Canyon of the 
 Yellowstone was their first revelation of intimidating 
 depth and color gone mad. When their car and 
 Milt's had been parked in the palisaded corral back 
 of the camp at which they were to stay, they three set 
 out for the canyon's edge chattering, and stopped 
 dumb. 
 
 Mr. Boltwood declined to descend. He returned to 
 the camp for a cigar. The boy and girl crept down 
 seeming miles of damp steps to an outhanging pinnacle 
 that still was miles of empty airy drop above the river 
 bed. Claire had a quaking feeling that this rock pulpit 
 was going to slide. She thrust out her hand, seized 
 Milt's paw, and in its firm warmth found comfort. 
 Clinging to its security she followed him by the crawl- 
 ing path to the river below. She looked up at columns 
 of crimson and saffron and burning brown, up at the 
 matronly falls, up at lone pines clinging to jutting 
 rocks that must be already crashing toward her, and 
 in the splendor she knew the Panic fear that is the 
 deepest reaction to beauty. 
 
 1.38 
 
FREE AIR 139 
 
 Milt merely shook his head as he stared up. He had 
 neither gossiped nor coyly squeezed her hand as he 
 had guided her. She fell to thinking that she pre- 
 ferred this American boy in this American scene to a 
 nimble gentleman saluting the Alps in a dinky green 
 hat with a little feather. 
 
 It was Milt who, when they had labored back up 
 again, when they had sat smiling at each other with 
 comfortable weariness, made her see the canyon not 
 as a freak, but as the miraculous work of a stream 
 rolling grains of sand for millions of years, till it 
 had cut this Jovian intaglio. He seemed to have read 
 — whether in books, or in paragraphs in mechanical 
 magazines — a good deal about geology. He made it 
 real. Not that she paid much attention to what he 
 actually said ! She was too busy thinking of the fact 
 that he should say it at all. 
 
 Not condescendingly but very companionably she 
 accompanied Milt in the exploration of their camp 
 for the night — the big dining tent, the city of individual 
 bedroom tents, canvas-sided and wooden-floored, each 
 with a tiny stove for the cold mornings of these high 
 altitudes. She was awed that evening by hearing her 
 waitress discussing the novels of Ibanez. Jeff Saxton 
 knew the names of at least six Russian novelists, but 
 Jeff was not highly authoritative regarding Spanish 
 literature. 
 
 " I suppose she's a school-teacher, working here in 
 
I40 FREE AIR 
 
 vacation," Claire whispered to Milt, beside her at the 
 long, busy, scenically conversational table. 
 
 " Our waitress ? Well, sort of. I understand she's 
 professor of literature in some college," said Milt, in a 
 matter of fact way. And he didn't at all see the se- 
 quence when she went on: 
 
 " There is an America ! I'm glad I've found it ! " 
 
 The camp's evening bonfire was made of logs on end 
 about a stake of iron. As the logs blazed up, the 
 guests on the circle of benches crooned " Suwanee 
 River," and " Old Black Joe," and Claire crooned 
 with them. She had been afraid that her father would 
 be bored, but she saw that, above his carefully tended 
 cigar, he was dreaming. She wondered if there had 
 been a time when he had hummed old songs. 
 
 The fire sank to coals. The crowd wandered off 
 to their tents. Mr. Boltwood followed them after an 
 apologetic, " Qood night. Don't stay up too late." 
 With a scattering of only half a dozen people on the 
 benches, this huge circle seemed deserted; and Claire 
 and Milt, leaning forward, chins on hands, were alone 
 — by their own campfire, among the mountains. 
 
 The stars stooped down to the hills; the pines were 
 a wall of blackness; a coyote yammered to point the 
 stillness; and the mighty pile of coals gave a warmth 
 luxurious in the creeping mountain chill. 
 
 The silence of large places awes the brisk intruder, 
 and Claire's voice was unconsciously lowered as she 
 
FREE AIR 141 
 
 begged, " Tell me something about yourself, Mr. Dag- 
 gett. I don't really know anything at all." 
 
 "Oh, you wouldn't be interested. Just Schoen- 
 strom ! " 
 
 " But just Schoenstrom might be extremely inter- 
 esting." 
 
 " But honest, you'd think I was — edging in on 
 you!" 
 
 " I know what you are thinking. The time I sug- 
 gested, way back there in Dakota, that you were stick- 
 ing too close. You've never got over it. I've tried 
 
 to make up for it, but I really don't blame you. 
 
 I was horrid. I deserve being beaten. But you do 
 keep on punishing ra " 
 
 " Punishing ? Lord, I didn't mean to ! No ! 
 Honest! It was nothing. You were right. Looked 
 
 as though I was inviting myself But, oh, 
 
 pleassssse, Miss Boltwood, don't ever think for a sec. 
 that I meant to be a grouch " 
 
 " Then do tell me Who is this Milton Dag- 
 gett that you know so much better than I ever can ? " 
 
 " Well," Milt crossed his kness, caught his chin 
 in his hand, " I don't know as I really do know him so 
 well. I thought I did. I was onto his evil ways. He 
 was the son of the pioneer doctor, Maine folks." 
 
 "Really? My mother came from Maine." 
 
 Milt did not try to find out that they were cousins. 
 He went on, " This kid. Milt, went to high school ia 
 
142 FREE AIR 
 
 St. Cloud — town twenty times as big as Schoenstrom 
 — but he drifted back because his dad was old and 
 needed him, after his mother's death " 
 
 " You have no brothers or sisters ? " 
 
 " No. Nobody. 'Cept Lady Vere de Vere— which 
 animal she is going to get cuffed if she chews up any 
 more of my overcoat out in my tent tonight! . . . 
 Well, this kid worked 'round, machinery mostly, and 
 
 got interested in cars, and started a garage Wee, 
 
 that was an awful shop, first one I had! In 
 Rauskukle's barn. Six wrenches and a screw-driver 
 and a one-lung pump! And I didn't know a roller- 
 bearing from three-point suspension ! But Well, 
 
 anyway, he worked along, and built a regular garage, 
 and paid off practically all the mortgage on it " 
 
 " I remember stopping at a gar^e in Schoenstrom, 
 I'm almost sure it was, for something. I seem to re- 
 member it was a good place. Do you own it? 
 Really?" 
 
 " Ye-es, what there is of it." 
 
 " But there's a great deal of it. It's efficient. 
 You've done your job. That's more than most high- 
 born aides-de-camp could say." 
 
 " Honestly ? Well— I don't know " 
 
 "Who did you play with in Schoenstrom? Oh, I 
 wish I'd noticed that town. But I couldn't tell then 
 
 that What, uh, which girl did you fall in love 
 
 with?" 
 
FREE AIR 143 
 
 " None ! Honest ! None ! Not one ! Never fell 
 in love ■' 
 
 "You're unfortunate. I have, lots of times. I 
 remember quite enjoying being kissed once, at a 
 dance." 
 
 When he answered, his voice w^as strange : " I sup- 
 pose you're engaged to somebody." 
 
 " No. And I don't know that I shall be. Once, I 
 thought I liked a man, rather. He has nice eyes and 
 the most correct spectacles, and he is polite to his 
 mother at breakfast, and his name is Jeff, and he will 
 undoubtedly be worth five or six hundred thousand 
 dollars, some day, and his opinions on George Moore 
 and commercial paper are equally sound and unorigi- 
 nal Oh, I ought not to speak of him, and I cer- 
 tainly ought not to be spiteful. I'm not at all reticent 
 
 and ladylike, am I ! But Somehow I can't see 
 
 him out here, against a mountain of jagged rock." 
 
 " Only you won't always be out here against moun- 
 tains. Some day you'll be back in — where is it in 
 New York State?" 
 
 " I confess it's Brooklyn — but not what you'd mean 
 by Brooklyn. Your remark shows you to have sub- 
 tlety. I must remember that, mustn't I ! I won't al- 
 ways be driving through this big land. But Will 
 
 I get all fussy and ribbon-tied again, when I go back? " 
 
 " No. You won't. You drive like a man." 
 
 " What has that " 
 
144 FREE AIR 
 
 " It has a lot to do with it. A garage man can trail 
 along behind another car and figger out, figure out, just 
 about what kind of a person the driver is from the way 
 he handles his boat. Now you bite into the job. You 
 drive pretty neat — neatly. You don't either scoot too 
 far out of the road in passing a car, or take corners 
 too wide. You won't be fussy. But still, I suppose 
 you'll be glad to be back among your own folks and 
 you'll forget the wild Milt that tagged along " 
 
 " Milt — or Mr. Daggett — no, Milt ! I shall never, 
 in my oldest grayest year, in a ducky cap by the fire- 
 place, forget the half-second when your hand came 
 flashing along, and caught that man on the running- 
 board. But it wasn't just that melodrama. If that 
 hadn't happened, something else would have, to sym- 
 bolize you. It's that you — oh, you took me in, a 
 stranger, and watched over me, and taught me the 
 customs of the country, and were never impatient. 
 No, I shan't forget that; neither of the Boltwoods 
 will." 
 
 In the rose-haze of firelight he straightened up and 
 stared at her, but he settled into shyness again as she 
 added : 
 
 " Perhaps others would have done the same thing. 
 I don't know. If they had, I should have remembered 
 them too. But it happened that it was you, and I, uh, 
 my father and I, will always be grateful. We both 
 hope we may see you in Seattle. What are you plan- 
 
FREE AIR 145 
 
 ning to do there? What is your ambition? Or is 
 that a rude question ? " 
 
 " Why, uh " 
 
 " What I mean I mean, how did you happen 
 
 to want to go there, with a garage at home ? You still 
 control it?" 
 
 " Oh yes. Left my mechanic in charge. Why, I 
 just kind of decided suddenly. I guess it was what 
 they call an inspiration. Always wanted a long trip, 
 anyway, and I thought maybe in Seattle I could hook 
 up with something a little peppier than Schoenstrom. 
 Maybe something in Alaska. Always wished I were 
 a mechanical or civil engineer so " 
 
 "Then why don't you become one? You're 
 young How old are you ? " 
 
 " Twenty-five." 
 
 " We're both children, compared with Je — com- 
 pared with some men who are my friends. You're 
 quite young enough to go to engineering school. And 
 take some academic courses on the side — English, so 
 on. Why don't you? Have you ever thought of it? " 
 
 " N-no, I hadn't thought of doing it, but 
 
 AH right. I will ! In Seatde ! B'lieve the University 
 of Washington is there." 
 
 "You mean it?" 
 
 " Yes. I do. You're the boss." 
 
 "That's — that's flattering, but Do you al- 
 ways make up your mind as quickly as this ? " 
 
146 FREE AIR 
 
 " When the boss gives orders ! " 
 
 He smiled, and she smiled back, but this time it was 
 she who was embarrassed. " You're rather over- 
 whelming. You change your life — if you really do 
 mean it — because a jeune [die from Brooklyn is so im- 
 pertinent, from her Olympian height of finishing- 
 school learning, as to suggest that you do so." 
 
 " I don't know what a jeune fille is, but I do 
 
 know " He sprang up. He did not look at her. 
 
 He paraded back and forth, three steps to the right,, 
 three to the left, his hands in his pockets, his voice im- 
 personal. " I know you're the finest person I ever 
 met. You're the kind — I knew there must be people 
 like you, because I knew the Joneses. They're the only 
 friends I've got that have, oh, I suppose it's what they 
 call culture." 
 
 In a long monologue, uninterrupted by Claire, he 
 told of his affection for the Schoenstrom " prof " and 
 his wife. The practical, slangy Milt of the garage was 
 lost in the enthusiastic undergraduate adoring his 
 instructor in the university that exists as veritably 
 in a teacher's or a doctor's sitting-room in every 
 Schoenstrom as it 'does in certain lugubrious stone 
 hulks recognized by a state legislature as magically em- 
 powered to paste on sacred labels lettered " Bachelor 
 of Arts." 
 
 He broke from his revelations to plump down on 
 the bench beside her, to slap his palm with his fist. 
 
FREE AIR 147 
 
 and sigh, " Lord, I've been gassing on ! Guess I bored 
 you!" 
 
 "Oh, please, Milt, please! I see it all so It 
 
 must have been wonderful, the evening when Mrs. 
 Jones read Noyes's ' Highwayman ' aloud. Tell me 
 — long before that — were you terribly lonely as a little 
 boy?" 
 
 Now Milt had not been a terribly lonely little boy. 
 He had been a leader in a gang devoted to fighting, 
 swimming, pickerel-spearing, beggie-stealing, and 
 catching rides on freights. 
 
 But he believed that he was accurately presenting 
 every afternoon of his childhood, as he mused, " Yes, 
 I guess I was, pretty much. I remember I used to sit 
 on dad's doorstep, all those long sleepy summer after- 
 noons, and I'd think, ' Aw, geeeeee, I — wisht — I — had 
 — some-body — to — play — with ! ' I always wanted to 
 make-b'lieve Robin Hood, but none of the other kids 
 — so many of them were German; they didn't know 
 about Robin Hood; so I used to scout off alone." 
 
 " If I could only have been there, to be Maid 
 Marian for you ! We'd have learned archery ! Lonely 
 little boy on the doorstep ! " Her fingers just touched 
 his sleeve. In her gesture, the ember-light caught the 
 crystal of her wrist watch. She stooped to peer at it, 
 and her pitying tenderness broke oflF in an agitated: 
 " Heavings ! Is it that late ? To bed ! Good night, 
 Milt." 
 
148 FREE AIR 
 
 "Good night, CI Miss Boltwood." 
 
 " No. ' Claire,' of course. I'm not normally a first- 
 name-snatcher, but I do seem to have fallen into saying 
 'Milt.' Night!" 
 
 As she undressed, in her tent, Claire reflected, " He 
 won't take advantage of my being friendly, will he? 
 
 Only thing is I sha'n't dare to look at Henry B. 
 
 when Milt calls me ' Claire ' in that sedate Brooklyn 
 Heights presence. The dear lamb! Lonely after- 
 noons ! " 
 

 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE BEAST OF THE CORRAL 
 
 THEY met in the frost-shimmering mountain 
 morning, on their way to the corral, to get their 
 cars ready before breakfast. They were shy, hence 
 they were boisterous, and tremendously unreferential 
 to campfire confidences, and informative about distilled 
 water for batteries, and the price of gas in the Park. 
 On Milt's shoulder rode Vere de Vere who, in her 
 original way, relieved one pause by observing " Mrwr." 
 
 They came in through the corral gate before any 
 of the other motor tourists had appeared — and they 
 stupidly halted to watch a bear, a large, black, adipose 
 and extremely unchained bear, stalk along the line of 
 cars, snifif, cock an ear at the Gomez, lumber up on its 
 running-board, and bundle into the seat. His stern 
 filled the space between side and top, and he was to be 
 heard snufifing. 
 
 "Oh! Look! Milt! Left box of candy on 
 seat Oh, please drive him away ! " 
 
 "Me? Drive— that?" 
 
 " Frighten him away. Aren't animals afraid human 
 
 eye 
 
 " Not in this park. Guns forbidden. Animals pro- 
 tected by U. S. Army, President, Congress, Supreme 
 
 149 
 
I50 FREE AIR 
 
 Court, Department of Interior, Monroe Doctrine, W. 
 C. T. U. But I'll try— cautiously." 
 
 " Don't you want me think you're hero? " 
 
 " Ye-es, providin' I don't have to go and be one." 
 
 They edged toward the car. The bear flapped his 
 hind legs, looked out at the intruders, said " OofflU ! " 
 and returned to the candy. 
 
 " Shoo ! " Milt answered politely. 
 
 "Llooffll!" 
 
 From his own bug, beside the Gomez, Milt got a 
 tool kit, and with considerable brilliance as a pitcher 
 he sent a series of wrenches at the agitated stern of 
 the bear. They offended the dignity of the ward of 
 the Government. He finished the cover and ribbons 
 of the candy box, and started for Milt . . . who pro- 
 ceeded with haste toward Claire . . . who was already 
 at the gate. 
 
 Lady Vere de Vere, cat of a thousand battles, gave 
 one frightful squawl, shot from Milt's shoulder and at 
 the bear, claws out, fur electric. The bear carelessly 
 batted once with its paw, and the cat sailed into the 
 air. The satisfied bear strolled to the fence, shinned 
 up it and over. 
 
 " Good old Vere ! That wallop must of darn near 
 stunned her, though ! " Milt laughed to Claire, as they 
 trotted back into the corral. The cat did not move, 
 as they came up ; did not give the gallant " Mrwr " 
 with which she had saluted Milt on lonely morning 
 
FREE AIR 151 
 
 after morning of forlorn driving behind the Gomez. 
 He picked Vere up. 
 
 " She's — she's dead," he said. He was crying. 
 
 " Oh, Milt Last night you said Vere was all 
 
 the family you had. You have the Boltwoods, now ! " 
 
 She did not touch his hand, nor did they speak as 
 they walked soberly to the far side of the corral, and 
 buried Lady Vere de Vere. At breakfast they talked 
 of the coming day's run, from the canyon out of the 
 Park, and northward. But they had the queer, quick 
 casualness of intimates. 
 
 It was at breakfast that her father heard one Milt 
 Daggett address the daughter of the Boltwoods as 
 " Claire." The father was surprised into clearing his 
 throat, and attacking his oatmeal with a zealousness 
 unnatural in a man who regarded breakfast-foods as 
 moral rather than interesting. 
 
 While he was lighting a cigar, and Claire was pay- 
 ing the bill, Mr. Boltwood stalked Milt, cleared his 
 throat all over again, and said, " Nice morning." 
 
 It was the first time the two men had talked un- 
 chaperoned by Claire. 
 
 " Yes. We ought to have a good run, sir." The 
 " sir " came hard. The historian puts forth a theory 
 that Milt had got it out of fiction. " We might go up 
 over Mount Washburn. Take us up to ten thousand 
 feet." 
 
152 FREE AIR 
 
 "XJh, you said — didn't Miss Boltwood tell me tkat 
 you are going to Seattle, too ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Friends there, no doubt?" 
 
 Milt grinned irresistibly. " Not a friend. But I'm 
 going to make 'em. I'm going to take up engineering, 
 and some French, I guess, at the university there." 
 
 "Ah. Really?" 
 
 " Yes. Been too limited in my ambition. Don't see 
 why I shouldn't get out and build railroads and 
 power plants and roads — Siberia, Africa, all sorts of 
 interesting places." 
 
 " Quite right. Quite right. Uh, ah, I, oh, I 
 
 Have you seen Miss Boltwood ? " 
 
 " I saw Miss Boltwood in the office." 
 
 " Oh yes. Quite so. Uh — ah, here she is." 
 
 When the Gomez had started, Mr. Boltwood skirm- 
 ished, " This young man Do you think you bet- 
 ter let him call you by your Christian name ? " 
 
 " Why not? I call him ' Milt.' ' Mr. Daggett' is 
 too long a handle to use when a man is constantly 
 rescuing you from the perils of the deep or hoboes or 
 bears or something. Oh, I haven't told you. Poor 
 old Milt, his cat was killed " 
 
 " Yes, yes, dolly, you may tell me about that in 
 due time, but let's stick to this social problem for a 
 moment. Do you think you ought to be too intimate 
 with him?" 
 
FREE AIR 153 
 
 " He's only too self-respecting. He wouldn't take 
 advantage " 
 
 " I'm quite aware of that. I'm not speaking on your 
 behalf, but on his. I'm sure he's a very amiable chap, 
 
 and ambitious. In fact Did you know that he 
 
 has saved up money to attend a university? " 
 
 "When did he tell you that? How long has he 
 been planning I thought that I " 
 
 " Just this morning; just now." 
 
 "Oh! I'm relieved." 
 
 " I don't quite follow you, dolly, but Where 
 
 was I ? Do you realize what a demure tyrant you are ? 
 If you can drag me from New York to the aboriginal 
 wilds, and I did not like that oatmeal, what will you do 
 to this innocent ? I want to protect him ! " 
 
 " You better ! Because I'm going to carve him, and 
 paint him, and possibly spoil him. The creating of a 
 man — of one who knows how to handle life — is so 
 much more wonderful than creating absurd pictures or 
 statues or stories. I'll nag him into completing col- 
 lege. He'll learn dignity — or perhaps lose his sim- 
 plicity and be ruined; and then I'll marry him off to 
 some nice well-bred pink-face, like JefiF Saxton's pretty 
 cousin — who may turn him into a beastly money- 
 grubber; and I'm monkeying with destiny, and I ought 
 to be slapped, and I realize it, and I can't help it, and 
 all my latent instinct as a feminine meddler is aroused, 
 and — golly, I almost went off that curve ! " 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 THE BLACK DAY OF THE VOYAGE 
 
 THAT was the one black day of her voyage — 
 black stippled with crimson. 
 
 It began with the bear's invasion of the car, re- 
 sulting in long claw-marks across the upholstery, the 
 loss of some particularly good candy bought at a Park 
 hotel, and genuine grief abiding after the sentimental 
 tragedy of Vere de Vere's death. The next act was 
 the ingenious loss of all power of her engine. She 
 forgot that, before breakfast, Milt had filled the oil- 
 well for her. When she stopped for gasoline, and the 
 seller inquired, " Quart of oil ? " she absently nodded. 
 So the cylinders filled with surplus oil, the spark-plugs 
 were fouled, and the engine had the power of a sewing 
 machine. 
 
 She could not make Mount Washburn — she could 
 not make even the slopes of the lower road. Now she 
 knew the agony of the feeble car in the mountains — 
 most shameful and anxious of a driver's dolors: the 
 brisk start up the hill, the belief that you will keep 
 on going this time; the feeling of weariness through 
 all the car; the mad shifting of gears, the slipping of 
 the clutch, and more gas, and less gas, and wondering 
 whether more gas or less is the better, and the appalling 
 
 154 
 
FREE AIK 155 
 
 knocking when you finally give her a lot too much 
 gas; the remembrance, when it's too late, to retard the 
 spark; the safe crawling up to the last sharp pitch, just 
 fifteen feet from the summit; the car's halting; the 
 yelp at your passenger, " Jump out and push ! " ; the 
 painful next five feet; and the final death of the power 
 just as the front wheels creep up over the pitch. Then 
 the anxious putting on of brakes — ^holding the car with 
 both foot-brake and emergency, lest it run down back- 
 ward, slip off the road. The calf of your leg begins to 
 ache from the pressure on the foot-brake, and with an 
 unsuccessful effort to be courteous you bellow at the 
 passenger, who has been standing beside the car look- 
 ing deprecatory, " Will you please block the back 
 wheels with a stone — hustle up, will you ! " 
 
 All this routine Claire thoroughly learned. Always 
 Milt bumbled up, said cheerful things, and either 
 hauled the Gomez over the pitch by a towline to his 
 bug, or getting out, pushing on a rear fender till his 
 neck was red and bulgy, gave the extra impetus neces- 
 sary to get the Gomez over. 
 
 " Would you mind shoving on that side, just a little 
 bit ? " he suggested to Mr. Boltwood, who ceased the 
 elaborate smoking of cigars, dusted his hands, and 
 gravely obeyed, while Claire was awaiting the new cap- 
 tain's command to throw on the power. 
 
 " I wish we weren't under so much obligation to 
 this young man," said Mr. Boltwood, after one crisis. 
 
156 FREE AIR 
 
 " I know but — what can we do ? " 
 
 " Don't you suppose we might pay him ? " 
 
 " Henry B. Boltwood, if you tried to do that 
 
 I'm not sure. Your being my parent might save you, 
 but even so, I think he'd probably chase you off the 
 road, clear down into that chasm." 
 
 " I suppose so. Shall we have to entertain him in 
 Seattle?" 
 
 " Have to ? My dear parent, you can't keep me from 
 it! Any of the Seattle friends of Gene Gilson who 
 don't appreciate that straight, fine, aspiring boy may 
 
 go Not overdo it, you understand. But 
 
 Oh, take him to the theater. By the way; shall we 
 try to climb Mount Rainier before " 
 
 " See here, my good dolly ; you stop steering me 
 away from my feeble parental efforts. Do you wish 
 to be under obligations " 
 
 " Don't mind, with Milt. He wouldn't charge in- 
 terest, as Jeff Saxton would. Milt is, oh, he's folks ! " 
 
 " Quite true. But are we? Are you? " 
 
 " Learning to be ! " 
 
 Between discussions and not making hills, Claire 
 cleaned the spark plugs as they accumulated carbon 
 from the surplus oil — or she pretended to help Milt 
 clean them. The plugs were always very hot, and 
 when you were unscrewing the jacket from the core, 
 you always burned your hand, and wished you could 
 swear . . . and sometimes you could. 
 
FREE AIR 157 
 
 After noon, when they had left the Park and en- 
 tered Gardiner, Milt announced, " I've got to stick 
 around a while. The key in my steering-gear seems to 
 bq worn. May have to put in a new one. Get the 
 stuff at a garage here. If you wouldn't mind waiting, 
 be awful glad to tag, and try to give a few helping 
 hands till the oil cleans itself out." 
 
 " I'll just stroll on," she said, but she drove away 
 as swiftly as she could. Her father's worry about 
 obligations disturbed her, and she did not wish to 
 seem too troublesome an amateur to Milt. She would 
 see him in Livingston, and tell him how well she had 
 driven. The spark plugs kept clean enough now so 
 that she could command more power, but 
 
 Between the Park and the transcontinental road 
 there are many climbs short but severely steep; up- 
 shoots like the humps on a scenic railway. To tackle 
 them with her uncertain motor was like charging a 
 machine-gun nest. She spent her nerve-force lavishly, 
 and after every wild rush to make a climb, she had to 
 rest, to rub the suddenly aching back of her neck. 
 Because she was so tired, she did not take the trouble 
 to save her brakes by going down in gear. She let 
 the brakes smoke while the river and railroad below 
 rose up at her. 
 
 There was a long drop. How long it was she did 
 not guess, because it was concealed by a curve at the 
 top. She seemed to plane down forever. The brakes 
 
158 FREE AIR 
 
 squealed behind. She tried to shift to first but there 
 was a jarring snarl, and she could neither get into 
 first nor back into third. She was running in neutral, 
 the great car coasting, while she tried to slow it by 
 jamming down the foot-brake. The car halted — and 
 started on again. The brake-lining which had been 
 wished on her at Saddle Back was burnt out. 
 
 She had the feeling of the car bursting out from 
 under control . . . ready to leap off the road, into a 
 wash. She wanted to jump. It took all her courage to 
 stay in the seat. She got what pressure she could 
 from the remaining band. With one hand she kept 
 the accelerating car in the middle of the road; with 
 the other she tried to pull the handle of the emer- 
 gency brake back farther. She couldn't. She was 
 not strong enough. Faster, faster, rushing at the 
 next curve so that she could scarce steer round it 
 
 As quietly as she could, she demanded of her father, 
 " Pull back on this brake lever, far as you can. Take 
 both hands." 
 
 " I don't understand " 
 
 "Heavens! Y' don't haft un' stand! Yank back! 
 Yank, I tell you ! " 
 
 Again the car slowed. She was able to get into 
 second speed. Even that check did not keep the car 
 from darting down at thirty miles an hour — which 
 pace, to one who desires to saunter down at a dignified 
 rate of eighteen, is equivalent in terms of mileage on 
 
FREE AIR 159 
 
 level ground to seventy an hour, with a drunken driver, 
 on a foggy evening, amid traffic. 
 
 She got the car down and, in the midst of a valley 
 of emptiness and quiet, she dropped her head on her 
 father's knee and howled. 
 
 " I just can't face going down another hill ! I just 
 can't face it ! " she sobbed. 
 
 " No, dolly. Mustn't. We better You're 
 
 quite right. This young Daggett is a very gentlemanly 
 
 fellow. I didn't think his table-manners But 
 
 we'll sit here and regard the flora and fauna till he 
 comes. He'll see us through." 
 
 " Yes ! He will ! Honestly, dad " She said it 
 
 with the first touch of hero-worship since she had seen 
 an aviator loop loops. " Isn't he, oh, efifective ! Aren't 
 you glad he's here to help us, instead of somebody like 
 JeflF Saxton?" 
 
 " We-ul, you must remember that Geoffrey wouldn't 
 have permitted the brake to burn out. He'd have fore- 
 seen it, and have had a branch office, with special 
 leased wire, located back on that hill, ready to do busi- 
 ness the instant the market broke. Enthusiasm is a 
 nice quality, dolly, but don't misplace it. This lad, 
 however trustworthy he may be, would scarcely even 
 be allowed to work for a man like Geoffrey Saxton. 
 It may be that later, with college " 
 
 " No. He'd work for Jeff two hours. Then Jeff 
 would give him that ' You poor fish ! '- look, and Milt 
 
i6o FREE AIR 
 
 would hit him, and stroll out, and go to the Nbrtfe 
 Pole or some place, and discover an oil-well, and hire 
 
 Jeff as his nice, efficient general manager. And • 
 
 I do wish Milt would hurry, though ! " 
 
 It was dusk before they heard the pit-pit-pit chuck- 
 ling down the hill. Milt's casual grin changed to 
 bashfulness as Claire ran into the road, her arms wide 
 in a lovely gesture of supplication, and cried, " We 
 been waiting for you so long! One of my brake- 
 bands is burnt out, and the other is punk." 
 
 " Well, well. Let's try to figure out something 
 to do." 
 
 She waited reverently while the local prophet sat in 
 his bug, stared at the wheels of the Gomez, and 
 thought. The level-floored, sagebrush-sprinkled hol- 
 low had filled with mauve twilight and creeping stilly 
 sounds. The knowable world of yellow lights and 
 security was far away. Milt was her only means of 
 ever getting back to it. 
 
 " Tell you what we might try," he speculated. " I'll 
 hitch on behind you, and hold back in going down 
 hill." 
 
 She did not even try to help him while he again 
 cleaned the spark plugs and looked over brakes, oil, 
 gas, water. She sat on the running-board, and it was 
 pleasant to be relieved of responsibility. He said 
 nothing at all. While he worked he whistled that re- 
 cent refined ballad: 
 
FREE AIR i6i 
 
 I wanta go back to Oregon 
 
 And sit on the lawn, and look at the dawn. 
 
 Oh motheruh dear, don't leavuh me here, 
 
 The leaves are so sere, in the fallothe year, 
 
 I wanta go back to Oregugon, 
 
 To dearuh old Oregugon. 
 
 They started, shouting optimistically to each other, 
 lights on, trouble seeming over — and they stopped 
 after the next descent, and pools of tears were in the 
 corners of Qaire's eyes. The holdback had not suc- 
 ceeded. Her big car, with its quick-increasing mo- 
 mentum, had jerked at the bug as though it were a 
 lard-can. The tow-rope had stretched, sung, snapped, 
 and again, in fire-shot delirium, she had gone rocking 
 down hill. 
 
 He drove up beside her, got out, stood at her elbow. 
 His " I'm a bum inventor. We'll try somethin' else " 
 was so careless that, in her nerve-twanging exhaustion 
 she wailed, " Oh, don't be so beastly cheerful ! You 
 don't care a bit 1 " 
 
 In the dusk she could see him straighten, and his 
 voice came sharp as he ignored the ever-present 
 parental background and retorted, " Somebody has got 
 to be cheerful. Matter fact, I worked out the right 
 stunt, coming down." 
 
 Like a man in the dentist's chair, recovering between 
 bouts, she drowsed and ignored the fact that in a few 
 aiinutes she would again have to reassemble herself, 
 
i62 FREE AIR 
 
 become wakeful and calm, and go through quite im- 
 possible maneuvers of driving. Milt was, with a 
 hatchet from his camping-kit, cutting down a large 
 scrub pine. He dragged it to the Gomez and hitched 
 it to the back axle. The knuckles of the branches 
 would dig into the earth, the foliage catch at every 
 pebble. 
 
 "There! That anchor would hold a truck!" he 
 shouted. 
 
 It held. She went down the next two hills easily. 
 But she was through. Her forearms and brain were 
 equally numb. She appealed to Milt, " I can't seem to 
 go on any more. It's so dark, and I'm so tired " 
 
 " All right. No ranch houses anywheres near, so 
 we'll camp here, if Mr. Boltwood doesn't mind." 
 
 Claire stirred herself to help him prepare dinner. 
 It wasn't much of a dinner to prepare. Both cars had 
 let provisions run low. They had bacon and petrified 
 ends of a loaf and something like cofiFee — not much 
 like it. Scientists may be interested in their discovery 
 that as a substitute for both cream and sugar in bev- 
 erages strawberry jam is a fallacy. 
 
 For Mr. Boltwood's bed Milt hauled out the springy 
 seat-cushions of both cars. The Gomez cushion was 
 three inches thicker than that of the bug, which 
 resulted in a mattress two stories in front with a lean- 
 to at the foot, and the entire edifice highly slippery. 
 But with a blanket from Milt's kit, it was sufficient. 
 
FREE AIR 163 
 
 To Claire, Milt gave another blanket, his collection of 
 antique overcoats, and good advice. He spoke vaguely 
 of a third blanket for himself. And he had one. Its 
 dimensions were thirteen by twenty inches, it was of 
 white wool, he had bought it in Dakota for Vere de 
 Vere, and many times that day he had patted it and 
 whispered, " Poor old cat." 
 
 Under his blankets Mr. Boltwood thought of rattle- 
 snakes, bears, rheumatism, Brooklyn, his debt to Milt, 
 and the fact that — though he hadn't happened to men- 
 tion it to Claire — he had expected to be killed when 
 the brake had burned out. 
 
 Claire was drowsily happy. She had got through. 
 She was conscious of rustling sagebrush, of the rapids 
 of the Yellowstone beside her, of open sky and sweet 
 air and a scorn for people in stuflFy rooms, aad com- 
 fortably ever conscious of Milt, ten feet away. She 
 had in him the interest that a young physician would 
 have in a new X-ray machine, a printer in a new font 
 of type, any creator in a new outlet for his power. 
 She would see to it that her Seattle cousins, the Gil- 
 sons, helped him to know the right people, during his 
 university work. She herself would be back in Brook- 
 lyn, but perhaps he would write to her, write — 
 write letters — Brooklyn — she was in Brooklyn — no, 
 no, where was she? — oh, yes, camping — bad day — 
 
 brakes No, she would not marry Jeff Saxton! 
 
 Brooklyn — river singing — stars 
 
i64 FREE AIR 
 
 And when Milt wasn't unromantically thinking of 
 his cold back, he exulted. " She won't be back among 
 her own folks till Seattle. Probably forget me then. 
 Don't blame her. But till we get there, she'll let me 
 play in her yard. Gee ! In the morning I'll be talking 
 to her again, and she's right there, right now ! " 
 
 In the morning they were all very stiff, but glad of 
 the sun on sagebrush and river, and the boy and girl 
 sang over breakfast. While Milt was gathering fuel he 
 looked up at Claire standing against a background of 
 rugged hills, her skirt and shoes still smug, but her 
 jacket off, her blouse turned in at the throat, her hair 
 blowing, her sleeves rolled up, one hand on her hip, 
 erect, charged with vigor — the spirit of adventure. 
 
 When her brake had been relined, at Livingston, 
 they sauntered companionably on to Butte. And the 
 day after Butte, when Milt was half a mile behind the 
 Gomez, a pink-haired man with a large, shiny revolver 
 stepped out from certain bushes, and bowed politely, 
 and at that point Milt stopped. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 THE SPECTACLES OF AUTHORITY 
 
 OVER the transcontinental divide and into Butte, 
 diamond-glittering on its hills in the dark; into 
 Missoula, where there are trees and a university, with 
 a mountain in everybody's backyard; through the 
 Flathead Agency, where scarlet-blanketed Indians 
 stalk out of tepees and the papoose rides on mother's 
 back as in forgotten days; down to St. Ignatius, that 
 Italian Alp town with its old mission at the foot of 
 mountains like the wall of Heaven, Claire had driven 
 west, then north. She was sailing past Flathead Lake, 
 where fifty miles of mountain glory are reflected in 
 bright waters. Everywhere were sections of flat 
 wheat-plains, stirring with threshing, with clattering 
 machinery and the flash of blown straw. But these 
 miniature prairies were encircled by abrupt moun- 
 tains. 
 
 Mr. Boltwood remarked, " I'd rather have one of 
 these homesteads and look across my fields at those 
 hills than be King of England." Not that he made 
 any effort to buy one of the homesteads. But then, 
 he made no appreciable effort to become King of 
 England. 
 
 Claire had (not seen Milt for a day an^d a half; not 
 since the morning when both cars had left Butte. She 
 
 165 
 
i66 FREE AIR 
 
 wondered, and was piqued, and slightly lonely. To- 
 ward evening, when she was speculating as to whether 
 she would make Kalispell — almost up to the Canadian 
 border — she saw a woman run into the road from a 
 house on the shore of Flathead Lake. The woman 
 held out her hand. Claire pulled up. 
 
 " Are you Miss Boltwood? " 
 
 It was as startling as the same question would 
 have been in a Chinese village. 
 
 " W-why, yes." 
 
 " Somebody trying to get you on the long-distance 
 'phone." 
 
 "Me? 'Phone?" 
 
 She was trembling. " Something's happened to 
 Milt. He needs me ! " She could not manage her 
 voice, as she got the operator on the farmers' -line wire, 
 and croaked, " Was some one trying to get Miss Bolt- 
 wood ? " 
 
 "Yes. This Boltwood? Hotel in Kalispell trying 
 to locate you, for two hours. Been telephoning all 
 along the line, from Butte to Somers." 
 
 " W-well, w-will you g-get 'em for me?" 
 
 It was not Milt's placid and slightly twangy voice 
 but one smoother, more decisive, perplexingly familiar, 
 that finally vibrated, "Hello! Hello! Miss Bolt- 
 wood ! Operator, I can't hear. Get me a better con- 
 nection. Miss Boltwood?" 
 
 "Yes! Yes! This is Miss Boltwood!" she kept 
 
FREE AIR 167 
 
 beseeching, during a long and not unheated contro- 
 versy between the unknown and the crisp operator, 
 who knew nothing of the English language beyond, 
 " Here's your party. Why don't you talk ? Speak 
 louder!" 
 
 Then came clearly, " Hear me now ? " 
 
 "Yes! Yes!" 
 
 "Miss Boltwood?" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Oh. Oh, hello, Claire. This is Jeff." 
 
 "Jess who?" 
 
 "Not Jess. Jeff! Geoffrey! J-e-f-f! JeffSaxton!" 
 
 "Oh!" It was like a sob. "Why^why— but 
 you're in New York." 
 
 " Not exactly, dear. I'm in Kalispell, Montana." 
 
 " But that's right near here." 
 
 "So am I!" 
 
 " B-but " 
 
 " Out West to see copper interests. Traced you 
 from Yellowstone Park but missed you at Butte. 
 Thought I'd catch you on road. You talking from 
 Barmberry's? " 
 
 The woman who had hailed her was not missing a 
 word of a telephone conversation which might be rela- 
 tive to death, fire, elopement, or any other dramatic 
 event. Claire begged of her, " Where in the world 
 am I talking from, anyway? " 
 
 " This is Barmberry's Inn." 
 
i68 FREE AIR 
 
 " Yes," Claire answered on the telephone, " I seena 
 to be. Shall I start on and " 
 
 " No. Got ripping plan. Stay right where you are. 
 Got a fast car waiting. Be right down. We'll have 
 dinner. By ! " 
 
 A click. No answer to Claire's urgent hellos. She 
 hung up the receiver very, very carefully. She hated 
 to turn and face her audience of Mr. Henry B. Bolt- 
 wood, Mr. James Barmberry, Mrs. James Barmberry, 
 and four Barmberry buds averaging five and a quarter 
 in age. She tried to ignore the Barmberrys, but their 
 silence was noisy and interested while she informed 
 her father, " It's Jeff Saxton ! Out here to see copper 
 mines. Telephoned along road to catch us. Says 
 we're to wait dinner till he comes." 
 
 " Yessum," Mrs. Barmberry contributed, " he told 
 me if I did catch you, I was to have some new-killed 
 
 chickens ready to fry, and some whipped cream 
 
 Jim Barmberry, you go right out and finish whipping 
 that cream, and don't stand there gawping and goop- 
 ing, and you children, you scat ! " 
 
 Claire seized the moment of Mr. Boltwood's lordly 
 though bewildered bow to their hostess, and escaped 
 outdoors. Round the original settler's log-cabin were 
 nests of shacks and tents, for bedrooms, and on a 
 screened porch, looking on Flathead Lake, was the 
 dining-room. The few other guests had finished sup- 
 per and gone to their tents. 
 
FREE AIR 169 
 
 She ambled to the lake shore, feeling feebler, more 
 slapped and sent back to be a good little girl, than she 
 had when Milt had hitched a forest to the back axle, 
 three days ago. A map of her thoughts about Jeff Sax- 
 ton would have shown a labyrinth. Now, she was mut- 
 tering, "Dear Jeff! So thoughtful! Clever of him 
 to find me! So good to see him again ! " Now: "It's 
 still distinctly understood that I am not engaged to 
 him, and I'm not going to be surprised into kissing him 
 when he comes down like a wolf on the fold." Now: 
 "Jeff Saxton! Here! Makes me homesick for the 
 Heights. And nice shops in Manhattan, and a really 
 good play — music just before the curtain goes up." 
 Now : " Ohhhhhh geeeeee whizzzzzz ! I wonder if 
 he'll let us go any farther in the car ? He's so mana- 
 gerial, and dad is sure to take his side. He tried to 
 scare us off by that telegram to Fargo." Now : " He'd 
 be horrified if he knew about that bum brake. Milt 
 didn't mind. Milt likes his womenfolks to be daring. 
 Jeff wants his harem admiring and very reliable." 
 
 She crouched on the shore, a rather forlorn 
 figure. The peaks of the Mission Range, across the 
 violet-shadowed mirror of Flathead Lake, were a 
 sudden pure rose, in reflection of sunset, then stony, 
 forbidding. Across the road, on the Barmberry porch, 
 she could hear her father saying " Ah ? " and " In- 
 deed?" to James's stories. 
 
 Up the road, a blaring horn, great lights growing 
 
I70 FREE AIR 
 
 momently more dazzling, a roar, a' rush, the halting 
 car, and out of its blurred bulk, a trim figure darting — 
 Jefif Saxton — home and the people she loved, and the 
 ways and days she knew best of all. He had shouted 
 
 only " Is Miss " before she had rushed to him, 
 
 into the comfort of his arms, and kissed him. 
 
 She backed off and tried to sound as if it hadn't 
 happened, but she was quavery : " I can't believe it ! 
 It's too ridiculously wonderful to see you!" She 
 retreated toward the Barmberry porch, Jeff following, 
 his two hands out. They came within the range of 
 the house lights, and Mr. Boltwood hailed, " Ah ! 
 Geoffrey! Never had such a surprise — nor a more 
 delightful one ! " 
 
 " Mr. Boltwood 1 Looking splendid, sir ! New 
 man! William Street better look to its laurels when 
 you come back and get into the game I " 
 
 Then, on the lamp-lighted porch, the two men 
 shook hands, and looked for some other cordial thing 
 to do. They thought about giving each other cigars. 
 They smiled, and backed away, and smiled, in the 
 foolish, indeterminate way males have, being unable 
 to take it out in kissing. Mr. Boltwood solved the 
 situation by hemming, " Must trot in and wash. See 
 you very soon." Mr. James Barmberry and the squad 
 of, lesser Barmberrys regretfully followed. Claire 
 was alone with Jefif, and she was frightened. Yet she 
 ■was admitting that Jeff, in his English cap and flaring 
 
FREE AIR 171 
 
 London top-coat, his keen smile and his extreme 
 shavedness, was more attractive than she had remem- 
 bered. 
 
 " Glad to see me ? " he demanded. 
 
 "Oh, rather!" 
 
 " You're looking •" 
 
 " You're so " 
 
 " Nice trip ? You know you've sent me nothing but 
 postcards with ' Pretty town,' or something equally 
 sentimental." 
 
 " Yes, it's really been bully. These mountains and 
 big spaces simply inspire me." She said it rather defi- 
 antly. 
 
 " Of course they do ! Trouble is, with you away, 
 we've nothing to inspire us ! " 
 
 " Do you need anything, with your office and your 
 club?" 
 
 "Why, Claire!" 
 
 " I'm sorry. That was horrid of me." 
 
 " Yes, it was. Though I don't mind. I'm sure 
 we've all become meek, missing you so. I'm quite 
 willing to be bullied, and reminded that I'm a mere 
 T.B.M." 
 
 She had got herself into it; she had to tell him that 
 he wasn't just a business man; that she had "just 
 meant" he was so practical. 
 
 " But Jeff is no longer the practical one," he de- 
 clared. " Think of Claire driving over deserts and 
 
i7a FREE AIR 
 
 mountains. But Oh, it's been so lonely for us. 
 
 Can you guess how much? A dozen times every eve- 
 ning, I've turned to the telephone to call you up and 
 beg you to let me nip in and see you, and then realized 
 you weren't there, and I've just sat looking at the 
 'phone Oh, other people are so dull ! " 
 
 " You reall_, miss " 
 
 " I wish I were a poet, so I could tell you adequately. 
 But you haven't said you missed me, Claire. Didn't 
 you, a teeny bit? Wouldn't it have been tolerable to 
 have poor old Jeff along, to drive down dangerous 
 hills " 
 
 " And fill grease-cups ! Nasty and stickum on the 
 fingers ! " 
 
 " Yes, I'd have done that, too. And invented sur- 
 prises along the way. I'm a fine surpriser! I've 
 arranged for a motor-boat so we can explore the lake 
 here tomorrow. That's why I had you wait here in- 
 stead of coming on to Kalispell. Tomorrow morning, 
 unfortunately, I have to hustle back and catch a train 
 — called to California, and possibly a northern trip. 
 
 But meantime By now, my driver must have 
 
 sneaked my s'prises into the kitchen." 
 
 "What are they?" 
 
 " Guess." 
 
 " Food. Eats. Divine eats." 
 
 " Maybe." 
 
 " But what ? Please, sir. Claire is so hungry." 
 
FREE AIR 173 
 
 " We shall see in time, my child. Uncle Jeff is not 
 to be hurried." 
 
 " Ah — ^let — me — see — now ! I'll kick and scream !" 
 
 From New York Jeff had brought a mammoth 
 picnic basket. To the fried chicken ordered for din- 
 ner he added sealed jars of puree of wood pigeon, of 
 stuffed artichokes prepared by his club chef; caviar 
 and anchovies; a marvelous nightmare-creating fruit 
 cake to go with the whipped cream; two quarts of a 
 famous sherry ; candied fruits in a silver box. Dinner 
 was served not on the dining-porch but before the fire 
 in the Barmberrys' living-room. Claire looked at the 
 candied fruits, stared at Jeff rather queerly — as though 
 she was really thinking of some one else — and mused : 
 
 " I didn't know I cared so much for these foolish 
 luxuries. Tonight, I'd like a bath, just a tiny bit 
 scented, and a real dressing-table with a triple mirror. 
 
 and French talc, and come down in a dinner-gown 
 
 Oh, I have enjoyed the trip, Jeff. But my poor body 
 does get so tired and dusty, and then you treacherously 
 come along with these things that you've magicked 
 
 out of the mountains and I'm not a pioneer 
 
 woman, after all. And Henry B. is not a caveman. 
 See him act idolatrously toward his soup." 
 
 " I feel idolatrous. I'd forgotten the supreme eth- 
 ical importance of the soup. I'll never let myself 
 forget it again," said Mr. Boltwood, in the tone of 
 one who has come home. 
 
174 FREE AIR 
 
 Claire was grateful to Jeff that he did not let her 
 go on being grateful. He turned the talk to Brooklyn. 
 He was neat and explicit — and almost funny — in his 
 description of an outdoor presentation of Midsummer 
 Night's Dream, in which a domestic and intellectual 
 lady weighing a hundred and eighty-seven stageside 
 had enacted Puck. As they sat after dinner, as Claire 
 shivered, he produced a knitted robe, and pulled it 
 about her shoulders, smiling at her in a lonely, hungry 
 way. She caught his hand. 
 
 " Nice Jeff ! " she whispered. 
 
 " Oh, my dear ! " he implored. He shook his head 
 in a wistful way that caught her heart, and dutifully 
 went back to informing Mr. Boltwood of the true 
 state of the markets. 
 
 " Talk to Claire too ! " she demanded. She stopped, 
 stared. From outside she heard a nervous pit-pit-pit, 
 a blurred dialogue between Mr. James Barmberry and 
 another man. Into the room rambled Milt Daggett, 
 dusty of unpressed blue suit, tired of eyes, and not 
 too well shaved of chin, grumbling, " Thought I'd 
 never catch up with you, Claire Why " 
 
 "Oh! Oh, Milt— Mr. Daggett Oh, Jeff, this 
 
 is our good friend Milt Daggett, who has helped us 
 along the road." 
 
 Jeff's lucid rimless spectacles stared at Milt's wind- 
 reddened eyes ; his jaunty patch-pocket outing clothes 
 sniffed at Milt's sweater; his even voice followed 
 
FREE AIR 175 
 
 Milt's grunt of surprise with a curt " Ah. Mr. 
 Daggett." 
 
 " Pleased meet you," faltered Milt. 
 
 Jeff nodded, turned his shoulder on Milt, and went 
 on, " The fact is, Mr. Boltwood, the whole metal 
 market " 
 
 Milt was looking from one to another. Claire was 
 now over her first shocked comparison of candied 
 fruits with motor grease. She rose, moved toward 
 Milt, murmuring, " Have you had dinner?" 
 
 The door opened again. A pink-haired, red-faced 
 man in a preposterous green belted suit lunged in, 
 swept his broad felt hat in greeting, and boomed like a 
 cheap actor : 
 
 " Friends of my friend Milt, we about to dine salute 
 you. Let me introduce myself as Westlake Parrott, 
 better known to the vulgar as Pinky Parrott, gentle- 
 man adventurer, born in the conjunction of Mars and 
 Venus, with Saturn ascendant." 
 
 Jeff had ignored Milt. But at this absurd second 
 intrusion on his decidedly private dinner-party he 
 flipped to the center of the room and said " I beg 
 your pardon ! " in such a head-office manner that the 
 pink-locked Mystery halted in his bombast. Claire 
 felt wabbly. She had no theories as to where Milt 
 had acquired a private jester, nor as to what was about, 
 to happen to Milt — and possibly to her incautioui 
 self. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 THE VAGABOND IN GREEN 
 
 AS Milt had headed westward from Butte, as he 
 rattled peacefully along the road, conscious of 
 golden haze over all the land, and the unexpectedness 
 of prairie threshing-crews on the sloping fields of 
 mountainsides, a man had stepped out from bushes 
 beside the road, and pointed a .44 navy revolver. 
 
 The man was not a movie bandit. He wore a green 
 imitation of a Norfolk jacket, he had a broad red 
 smile, and as he flourished his hat in a bow, his hair 
 was a bristly pompadour of gray-streaked red that 
 was almost pink. He made oration : 
 
 " Pardon my eccentric greeting, brother of the open 
 road, but I wanted you to give ear to my obsequious 
 query as to how's chances on gettin' a lift? I have 
 learned that obsequiousness is best appreciated when 
 it is backed up by prayer and ca'tridges." 
 
 " What's the idea ? I seem to gather you'd like a 
 lift. Jump in." 
 
 " You do not advocate the Ciceronian style, I take 
 it," chuckled the man as he climbed aboard. 
 
 Milt was not impressed. Claire might have been, 
 but Milt had heard politics and religion argued about 
 the stove in Rauskukle's store too often to be startled 
 
 176 
 
FREE AIR 177 
 
 by polysyllabomania. He knew it was often the sign 
 of a man who has read too loosely and too much by 
 himself. He snorted. "Huh! What are you — ^news- 
 paper, politics, law, preacher, or gambler? " 
 
 " Well, a little of all those interesting occupations. 
 And ten-twent-thirt trouping, and county-fair spiel- 
 ing, and selling Dr. Thunder Rapids' Choctaw Herbal 
 Sensitizer. How far y' going?" 
 
 " Seattle." 
 
 "Honest? Say, kid, this is Muh boy, we 
 
 shall have the rare privilege of pooling adventures as 
 far as Blewett Pass, four to six days' run from here — 
 a day this side of Seattle. I'm going to my gold-mine 
 there. I'll split up on the grub — I note from your kit 
 that you camp nights. Quite all right, my boy. Pinky 
 Parrott is no man to fear night air." 
 
 He patted Milt's shoulder with patronizing inso- 
 lence. He filled a pipe and, though the car was 
 making twenty-five, he lighted the pipe with distin- 
 guished ease, then settled down to his steady stride : 
 
 " In the pride of youth, you feel that you have thor- 
 oughly categorized me, particularly since I am willing 
 to admit that, though I shall have abundance of the 
 clinking iron men to buy my share of our chow, I 
 chance just for the leaden-footed second to lack the 
 wherewithal to pay my railroad fare back to Blewett; 
 and the bumpers and side-door Pullman of the argo- 
 nauts like me not. Too damn dusty. But your analy 
 
178 FREE AIR 
 
 sis is unsynthetic, though you will scarce grasp my 
 paradoxical metaphor." 
 
 " The hell I won't. I've taken both chemistry and 
 rhetoric," growled Milt, strictly attending to driving, 
 and to the desire to get rid of his parasite. 
 
 " Oh ! Oh, I see. Well, anyway : I am no mere 
 nimble knight of wits, as you may take it. In fact, 
 I am lord of fair acres in Arcady." 
 
 " Don't know the burg. Montana or Idaho? " 
 
 " Neither ! In the valley of dream ! " 
 
 "Oh! That one. Huh!" 
 
 " But I happen to back them up with a perfectly un- 
 dreamlike gold-mine. Prospected for it in a canyon 
 near Blewett Pass and found it, b' gum, and my lady 
 wife, erstwhile fairest among the society favorites of 
 North Yakima, now guards it against her consort's 
 return. Straight goods. Got the stuff. Been to Butte 
 to get a raise on it, but the fell khedives of commerce 
 are jealous. They would hearken not. Gee, those 
 birds certainly did pull the frigid mitt ! So I wend my 
 way back to the demure Dolores, the houri of my 
 heart, and the next time I'll take a crack at the big 
 guns in Seattle. And I'll sure reward you for your 
 generosity in taking me to Blewett, all the long, long, 
 languid, languorous way " 
 
 " Too bad I got to stop couple of days at Spokane." 
 
 " Well, then you shall have the pleasure of taking 
 me that far." 
 
FREE AIR 179 
 
 " And about a week in Kalispell ! " 
 
 " 'Twill discommode me, but 'pon honor, I like your 
 honest simple face, and I won't desert you. Besides! 
 I know a guy in Kalispell, and I .can panhandle the 
 sordid necessary chuck while I wait for you. Little 
 you know, my cockerel, how facile a brain your 'bus 
 so lightly bears. When I've cashed in on the mine, 
 I'll take my rightful place among the motored gentry. 
 Not merely as actor and spieler, promoter and inventor 
 and soldier and daring journalist, have I played my 
 role, but also I am a mystic, an initiate, a clairaudient, 
 a psychometrist, a Rosicrucian adept, and profoundly 
 psychic — in fact, my guide is Hermes Trismegistus 
 himself! I also hold a degree as doctor of mento- 
 practic, and my studies in astro-biochemistry " 
 
 "Gonna stop. All off. Make little coffee," said 
 Milt. 
 
 He did not desire coffee, and he did not desire to 
 stop, but he did desperately desire not to inflict Pinky 
 Parrott upon the Boltwoods. It was in his creed as a 
 lover of motors never to refuse a ride to any one, 
 when he had room. He hoped to get around his creed 
 by the hint implied in stopping. Pinky's reaction to 
 the hint was not encouraging: 
 
 "Why, you have a touch of the psychic's flare! I 
 could do with coffee myself. But don't trouble to 
 make a fire. I'll do that. You drive — I do the camp 
 work. Not but that I probably drive better than you. 
 
i8o FREE AIR 
 
 if you will permit me to say so. I used to do a bit 
 of racing, before I took up aviation." 
 
 "Huh! Aviation! What machine d'you fly ? " 
 
 " Why, why — a biplane ! " 
 
 " Huh ! What kind of motor ? " 
 
 " Why, a foreign one. The — the It was a 
 
 French motor." 
 
 " Huh ! What track you race on ? " 
 
 " The Pardon me till I build a fire for our 
 
 al fresco collation, and I my driving history will un- 
 fold." 
 
 But he didn't do either. 
 
 After he had brought seven twigs, one piece of 
 sagebrush, and a six-inch board. Pinky let Milt finish 
 building the fire, while he told how much he knew 
 about the mysteries of ancient Egyptian priests. 
 
 Milt gave up hope that Pinky would become bored 
 by waiting and tramp on. After one hour of conver- 
 sational deluge, he decided to let Pinky drive — to 
 make him admit that he couldn't. He was wrong. 
 Pinky could drive. He could not drive well, he wab- 
 bled in his steering, and he killed the engine on a grade, 
 but he showed something of the same dashing idiocy 
 that characterized his talk. It was Milt not Pinky, 
 who was afraid of their running off the road, and 
 suggested resuming the wheel. 
 
 Seven times that day Milt tried to lose him. Once 
 he stopped without excuse, and merely stared up at 
 
FREE AIR i8l 
 
 rocks overhanging the hollowed road. Pinky was not 
 embarrassed. He leaned back in the seat and sang 
 two Spanish love songs. Once Milt deliberately took 
 a wrong road, up a mountainside. They were lost, 
 and took five hours getting back to the highway. 
 Pinky loved the thrill and — in a brief address lasting 
 fifteen minutes — he said so. 
 
 Milt tried to bore him by driving at seven miles an 
 hour. Pinky affectionately accepted this opportunity 
 to study the strata of the hills. When they camped, 
 that night, Pinky loved him like a brother, and was 
 considering not stopping at Blewett Pass, to see his 
 gold-mine and Dolores the lady-wife, but going clear 
 on to Seattle with his playmate. 
 
 The drafted host lay awake, and when Pinky awoke 
 and delivered a few well-chosen words on the subject 
 of bird-song at dawn, Milt burst out : 
 
 " Pinky, I don't like to do it, but I've never 
 
 refused a fellow a lift, but I'm afraid you'll have to 
 hike on by yourself, the rest of the way." 
 
 Pinky sat up in his blankets. " Afraid of me, eh? 
 You better be! I'm a bad actor. I killed Dolores's 
 husband, and took her along, see? I " 
 
 " Are you trying to scare me, you poor four- 
 flusher?" Milt's right hand expanded, fingers arch- 
 ing, with the joyous tension of a man stretching. 
 
 " No. I'm just reading your thoughts. I'm telling 
 you you're scared of me! You think that if I went 
 
i8a FREE AIR 
 
 on, I might steal your car! You're afraid because 
 I'm so suave. You aren't used to smooth ducks. You 
 don't dare to let me stick with you, even for today! 
 You're afraid I'd have your mis'able car by tonight! 
 You don't dare! " 
 
 " The hell I don't! " howled Milt. " If you think 
 
 I'm afraid Just to show you I'm not, I'll let you 
 
 go on today ! " 
 
 " That's sense, my boy. It would be a shame for two 
 such born companions of the road to part!" Pinky 
 had soared up from his blankets; was lovingly shaking 
 Milt's hand. 
 
 Milt knew that he had been tricked, but he felt 
 hopeless. Was it impossible to insult Pinky ? He tried 
 again : 
 
 " I'll be frank with you. You're the worst wind- 
 jamming liar I ever met. Now don't reach for that 
 gat. of yours. I've got a hefty rock right here handy." 
 
 " But, my dear, dear boy, I don't intend to reach for 
 any crude lethal smoke-wagon. Besides, there isn't 
 anything in it. I hocked the shells in Butte. I am not 
 angry, merely grieved. We'll argue this out as we 
 have breakfast and drive on. I can prove to you that, 
 though occasionally I let my fancy color mere untu- 
 tored fact with the pigments of a Robert J. Inger- 
 
 soli By the way, do you know his spiel on 
 
 whisky? " 
 
 " Stick to the subject. We'll finish our arguing 
 
FREE AIR 183 
 
 right now, and I'll give you breakfast, and we'll sadly 
 part." 
 
 " Merely because I am lighter of spirits than this 
 lugubrious old world ? No ! I decline to be dropped. 
 I'll forgive you and go on with you. Mind you, I am 
 sensitive. I will not intrude where I am not welcome. 
 Only you must give me a sounder reason than my 
 diverting conversational powers for shucking me. My 
 logic is even stronger than my hedonistic contempt for 
 hitting the pike." 
 
 " Well, hang it, if you must know Hate to say 
 
 it, but I'd do almost anything to get rid of you. Fact 
 is, I've been sort of touring with a lady and her father, 
 and you would be in the way ! " 
 
 "Aaaaaaah! You see! Why, my boy, I will not 
 only stick, but for you, I shall do the nimble John 
 Alden and win the lady fair. I will so bedizen your 
 
 virile, though somewhat crassly practical gifts 
 
 Why, women are my long suit. They fall for " 
 
 " Tut, tut, tut ! You're a fool. She's no beanery 
 mistress, like you're used to. She really is a lady." 
 
 " How blind you are, cruel friend. You do not 
 even see that whatever my vices may be, my social 
 standing " 
 
 " Oh — shut — up ! Can't you see I'm trying to be 
 kind to you ? Have I simply got to beat you up before 
 you begin to suspect you aren't welcome? Your social 
 standing isn't even in the telephone book. And your 
 
i84 FREE AIR 
 
 vocabulary You let too many ' kids ' slip i« 
 
 among the juicy words. Have I got to lick " 
 
 " Well. You're right. I'm a fliv. Shake hands, 
 m' boy, and no hard feelings." 
 
 " Good. Then I can drive on nice and alone, with- 
 ®ut having to pound your ears off ? " 
 
 " Certainly. That is — we'll compromise. You take 
 me on just a few miles, into more settled country, and 
 I'll leave you." 
 
 So it chanced that Milt was still inescapably accom- 
 panied by Mr. Pinky Parrott, that evening, when he 
 saw Claire's Gomez standing in the yard at Barm- 
 berry's and pulled up. 
 
 Pinky had voluntarily promised not to use his elo- 
 quence on Claire, not to try to borrow money from 
 Mr. Boltwood. Without ever having quite won per- 
 mission to stay, he had stayed. He had also carried 
 out his promise to buy his half of the provisions by 
 adding a five-cent bag of lemon drops to Milt's bacon 
 and bread. 
 
 When they had stopped. Milt warned, " There's 
 their machine now. Seems to be kind of a hotel here. 
 I'm going in and say howdy. Good-by, Pink. Glad 
 to have met you, but I expect you to be gone when I 
 
 come out here again. If you aren't Want granite 
 
 or marble for the headstone ? I mean it, now ! " 
 
 " I quite understand, my lad. I admire your chival- 
 ric delicacy. Farewell, old compagnon de voyage! " 
 
FREE AIR 185 
 
 Milt inquired of Mr. Barmberry whether the Bolt- 
 woods were within, and burst into the parlor-living- 
 room-library. As he cried to Qaire, by the fire, 
 " Thought I'd never catch up with you," he was con- 
 scious that standing up, talking to Mr. Boltwood, was 
 an old-young man, very suave, very unfriendly of eye. 
 He had an Oxford-gray suit, unwrinkled cordo- 
 van shoes; a pert, insultingly well-tied blue bow 
 tie, and a superior narrow pink bald spot. As he 
 heard Jeff Saxton murmur, "Ah. Mr. Daggett!" 
 Milt felt the luxury in the room — the fleecy robe over 
 Claire's shoulders, the silver box of candy by her 
 elbow, the smell of expensive cigars, and the portly 
 complacence of Mr. Boltwood. 
 
 "Have you had any dinner?" Claire was asking, 
 when a voice boomed, "Let me introduce myself as 
 Westlake Parrott." 
 
 Jeff abruptly took charge. He faced Pinky and 
 demanded, " I beg pardon ! " 
 
 Claire's eyebrows asked questions of Milt. 
 
 " This is a fellow I gave a lift to. Miner — I mean 
 actor — well, kind of spiritualistic medium " 
 
 Mr. Boltwood, with the geniality of dinner and 
 cigar, soothed, " Jeff, uh, Daggett here has saved our 
 lives two distinct times, and given us a great deal of 
 help. He is a motor expert. He has always refused 
 
 to let us do anything in return but I noticed 
 
 there was almost a whole fried chicken left. I wonder 
 
i86 FREE AIR 
 
 if he wouldn't share it with, uh, with his acquaintance 
 here before — before they make camp for the night? " 
 
 In civil and vicious tones Jeflf began, " Very glad 
 to reward any one who has been of service to " 
 
 He was drowned out by Pinky's effusive, " True 
 hospitality is a virtue as delicate as it is rare. We 
 accept your invitation. In fact I should be glad to 
 have one of those cigarros elegantos that mine olfac- 
 tory " 
 
 Milt cut in abruptly, " Pink ! Shut up ! Thanks, 
 folks, but we'll go on. Just wanted to see if you had 
 got in safe. See you tomorrow, some place." 
 
 Claire was close to Milt, her fingers on his sleeve. 
 " Please, Milt ! Father ! You didn't make your intro- 
 duction very complete. You failed to tell Mr. Dag- 
 gett that this is Mr. Saxton, a friend of ours in 
 Brooklyn. Please, Milt, do stay and have dinner. I 
 won't let you go on hungry. And I want you to know 
 Jefif — Mr. Saxton. . . . Jeff, Mr. Daggett is an 
 engineer, that is, in a way. He's going to take an 
 engineering course in the University of Washington. 
 Some day I shall make you bloated copper magnates 
 become interested in him. . . . Mrs. Barmberry. 
 Mrssssssss. Barrrrrrrmberrrrrry ! Oh. Oh, Mrs. 
 Barmberry, won't you please warm up that other 
 chicken for " 
 
 " Oh, now, that's too bad. Me and Jim have et it 
 all up ! " wept the landlady, at the door. 
 
FREE AIR! 187 
 
 " I'll go on," stammered Milt. 
 
 Jeff looked at him expressionlessly. 
 
 " You will not go on ! " Claire was insisting. " Mrs. 
 Barmberry, won't you cook some eggs or steak or 
 something for these boys?" 
 
 "Perhaps," Jeff suggested, "they'd rather make 
 their own dinner by a campfire. Must be very jolly, 
 and that sort of thing." 
 
 " Jeff, if you don't mind, this is my party, just for 
 the moment ! " 
 
 " Quite right. Sorry ! " 
 
 " Milt, you sit here by the fire and get warm. I'm 
 not going to be robbed of the egotistic pleasure of 
 being hospitable. Everybody look happy now!" 
 
 She got them all seated — all but Pinky. He had 
 long since seated himself, by the fire, in Claire's chair, 
 and he was smoking a cigar from the box which Jeff 
 had brought for Mr. Boltwood. 
 
 Milt sat farthest from the fire, by the dining-table. 
 He was agonizing, " This Jeff person is the real thing. 
 He's no Percy in riding-breeches. He's used to 
 society and nastiness. If be looks at me once more — 
 young garage man found froze stiff, near Flathead 
 Lake, scared look in eyes, believed to have met a 
 grizzly, no signs of vi'lence. And I thought I could 
 learn to mingle with Claire's own crowd! I wish I 
 was out in the bug. I wonder if I .can't escape? " 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE FALLACY OF ROMANCE 
 
 DURING dinner Milt watched Jeff Saxton's man- 
 ner and manners. The hot day had turned into 
 a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about 
 Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He 
 moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, 
 smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without 
 difficulty to maintain two conversations : one with Mr. 
 Boltwood about finances, one with Clare about mys- 
 terious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and 
 Bobbie and Dot, the mention of whom made Milt 
 realize how much a stranger he was. Once, as he 
 passed by Claire, Jeff said gently, " You are lovely ! " 
 Only that, and he did not look at her. But Milt saw 
 that Claire flushed, and her eyes dimmed. 
 
 Pinky was silent till he had eaten about two-thirds 
 of the total amount of fried eggs, cold lamb and ice- 
 box curios. When Claire came over to see how they 
 fared, Pinky removed himself, with smirking humility, 
 and firmly joined himself to Jeff and Mr. Boltwood. 
 He caught the subject of finance and, while Claire 
 dropped down in the chair by Milt, Pinky was lectur- 
 ing the two men from New York : 
 
 " Ah, finance! Queen of the sociological pantheon! 
 Its 
 
FREE AIR 189 
 
 I don't know how come I am so graced by Fortune as 
 to have encountered in these wilds two gentlemen so 
 obviously versed in the stratagems of the great golden 
 game, but I will take the opportunity to give you gen- 
 tlemeri some statistics about the gold-deposits still 
 existent in the Cascades and other ranges that may be 
 of benefit and certainly will be a surprise to you. It 
 happens that I have at the present time a mine " 
 
 Claire was whispering to Milt, " If we can get rid 
 of your dreadful passenger, I do want you to meet 
 Mr. Saxton. He may be of use to you some day. 
 He's terribly capable, and really quite nice. Think! 
 He happened to be out here, and he traced me by tele- 
 phone — oh, he treats long-distance 'phoning as I do 
 a hair-pin. He brought down the duckiest presents — 
 divertissements for dinner, and that knitted robe, and 
 some real Rene Bleuzet perfume — I was all out of 
 it And after the grime of the road " 
 
 " Do you really care for things like that, all those 
 awfully expensive luxuries?" begged Milt. 
 
 " Of course I do. Especially after small hotels." 
 
 " Then you don't really like adventuring? " 
 
 " Oh yes — in its place ! For one thing, it makes a 
 clever dinner seem so good by contrast ! " 
 
 " Well Afraid I don't know much about clever 
 
 dinners," Milt was sighing, when he was aware of 
 Jeff Saxton looming down on him, demanding: 
 
 " Daggett, would you mind trying to inform your 
 
igo^ FREE AIR 
 
 friend that neither Mr. Boltwood nor I care to 
 invest in his gold-mine? We can't seem to get that 
 into his head. I don't mind being annoyed myself, 
 but I really feel I must protect Mr. Boltwood." 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 " My dear sir, since you brought him here " 
 
 It was the potassium cyanide and cracked ice and 
 carpet tacks and TNT and castor oil in Jeff's " My 
 dear sir " that did it. Milt discovered himself on his 
 feet, bawling, " I am not your dear sir ! Pinky is my 
 
 guest, and Gee, sorry I lost my temper, Claire, 
 
 terrible sorry. See you along the road. Good night. 
 Pink! You take your hat ! Git!" 
 
 Milt followed Pinky out of the door, snarling, " Git 
 in the car, and do it quick. I'll take you clear to 
 Blewett Pass. We drive all night." 
 
 Pinky was of great silence and tact. Milt lumped 
 into the bug beside him. But he did not start the all- 
 night drive. He wanted to crawl back, on his knees, 
 to apologize to Claire — and to be slapped by Jeff 
 Saxton. He compromised by slowly driving a quarter 
 of a mile up the road, and camping there for the night. 
 
 Pinky tried to speak words of philosophy and 
 cheer — just once he tried it. 
 
 For hours, by a small fire. Milt grieved that all his 
 pride was gone in a weak longing to see Claire again. 
 In the morning he did see her — putting off on the 
 lake, in a motor-boat with Jeff and Mr. Barmberry. 
 
FREE AIR 191 
 
 He saw the boat return, saw Jeff get into the car 
 which had brought him from Kalispell, saw the fare- 
 well, the long handclasp, the stoop of Jeff's head, and 
 Claire's quick step backward before Jeff could kiss 
 her. But Claire waved to Jeff long after his car had 
 started. 
 
 When Claire and her father came along in the 
 Gomez, Milt was standing by the road. She stopped. 
 She smiled. "Night of sadness and regrets? You 
 were fairly rude, Milt. So was Mr. Saxton, but I've 
 lectured him, and he sends his apologies." 
 
 " I send him mine — 'deed I do," said Milt gravely. 
 
 " Then ever3rthing's all right. I'm sure we were 
 all tired. We'll just forget it." 
 
 " Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. " Hope 
 you lose that dreadful red-headed person." 
 
 " No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton 
 turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through 
 to Blewett Pass . . . though not to Seattle, by 
 
 golly!" 
 
 " Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudi- 
 
 nized. 
 
 " Claire — look You don't really care so ter- 
 ribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's 
 and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you ? " 
 
 " Yes," stoutly, " I do." 
 
 " But not compared with mountains and " 
 
192 FREE AIR 
 
 " Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior 
 about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the 
 heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. 
 But the niceties of life do mean something and even 
 if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply 
 adore them ! " 
 
 " All these things are kind of softening." And he 
 meant that she was still soft. 
 
 " At least they're not rude ! " And she meant that 
 he was rude. 
 
 " They're absolutely trivial. They shut ofif " 
 
 " They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still 
 fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by ! " 
 
 She had driven off, without looking back. She 
 was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at 
 forty miles an hour — and they had no engagement to 
 meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. 
 
 Before Milt went on he completed a task on which 
 he had decided the night before while he had medi- 
 tated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's 
 gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, 
 that stolid, very black covering which at Schoen- 
 strom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the 
 Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, 
 who gave in return a history of charity and high 
 souls. 
 
 Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that 
 they had started, where they had started for. Cer- 
 
FREE AIR 193 
 
 tainly not for Seattle ! Why not stop and see Pinky's 
 gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky 
 had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular 
 gold-mine in his possession. Milt could buy quantities 
 
 of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and 
 
 "And," he reflected, " I can learn as good manners 
 as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. 
 If I didn't, I'd sue the professor! " 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES 
 
 ON the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like 
 an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had 
 driven, and nov\^, nearing Idaho, she had entered a 
 national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she 
 tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the 
 spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She 
 would never see him again. She was sorry. He 
 hadn't meant 
 
 But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, 
 he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly 
 casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen 
 years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and 
 was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. 
 from beaming in that benevolent manner while she 
 was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and 
 — oh, drrrrrrat that casing! 
 
 To make the next town, after this delay, she had to 
 drive for hours by night through the hulking pines of 
 the national forest. It was her first long night drive. 
 
 A few claims, with log cabins of recent settlers, 
 once or twice the shack of a forest-ranger, a telephone 
 in a box by the road or a rough R. F. D. box nailed 
 to a pine trunk, these indicated that civilization still 
 
 194 
 
FREE AIR 195 
 
 existed, but they were only melancholy blurs. She 
 was in a cold enchantment. All of her was dead save 
 the ability to keep on driving, forever, with no hope 
 of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She 
 passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same 
 forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge 
 to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness- 
 stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at 
 the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a 
 panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, 
 there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of 
 steering, but she was forever in the same place, among 
 the same pines, with the same scowling blackness be- 
 tween their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead 
 was clear : a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank 
 and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a 
 roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, 
 which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made 
 the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. 
 
 She had never known anything save this strained 
 driving on. Jeff and Milt were old tales, and untrue. 
 Was it ten hours before that she had cooked dinner 
 beside the road ? No matter. She wasn't hungry any 
 longer. She would never reach the next town — and 
 she didn't care. It wasn't she, but a grim spirit which 
 ■had entered her dead body, that kept steering, feeding 
 gas, watching the road. 
 
 In the darkness outside the funnel of light from her 
 
196 FREE AIR 
 
 lamps were shadows that leaped, and gray hands 
 hastily jerked back out of sight behind tree trunks as 
 she came up; things that followed her, and hidden 
 men waiting for her to stop. 
 
 As drivers will, she tried to exorcise the creeping 
 fear by singing. She made up what she called her 
 driving-song. It was intended to echo the hoofs of 
 a fat old horse on a hard road : 
 
 The old horse trots with a Jog, jog, jog, 
 And a jog, jog, jog ; and a jog, jog, jog. 
 And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, 
 To the west, jog, jog ; and the north, jog, jog. 
 While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, 
 
 jug, jug, 
 From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. 
 Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag. 
 And he jigs, jigs, jigs, with his jug, jug, jug 
 
 The song was a comfort, at first — then a torment. 
 She drove to it, and she steered to it, and when she 
 tried to forget, it sang itself in her tired brain : " Jog, 
 jog, jog — oh, damn!" 
 
 Her father had had a chill. Miserable, weak as a 
 small boy, he had curled up on the bottom of the car, 
 his head on the seat, and gone to sleep. She was 
 alone. The mile-posts went by slowly. The posts 
 said there was a town ahead called Pellago, but it 
 never came 
 
FREE AIR 197 
 
 A"nd when it did come she was too tired to care. 
 In a thick dream she drove through midnight streets 
 of the town. In stupid paralysis she kicked at the 
 door of the galvanized-iron-covered garage. Nb 
 answer. She gave it up. She drove down the street 
 and into the yard of a hotel marked by a swing sign 
 out over the plank sidewalk. She got out the traveling 
 bags, awakened her father, led him up on the porch. 
 
 The Pellago Tavern was a transformed dwelling 
 house. The pillars of the porch were aslant, and the 
 rain-warped boards snapped beneath her feet. She 
 hesitatingly opened the door. The hallway was dark 
 and musty. A' sound like a moan filtered down the 
 unlighted stairs. 
 
 There seemed to be light in the room on the right. 
 Trying to assure herself that her father was a protec- 
 tion, she pushed open the door. She looked into an 
 airless room, scattered with rubber boots, unsavory 
 old corduroy caps, tattered magazines. By the stove 
 nodded a wry-mouthed, squat old woman, and a tall, 
 cheaply handsome man of forty. Tobacco juice 
 stained the front of his stiff-bosomed, collarless shirt. 
 His hands were white but huge. 
 
 The old woman started. " Well ? " 
 
 " I want to get two rooms for the niglht, please." 
 
 The man smirked at her. The woman creaked, 
 "Well, I don't know. Where d' you come from, 
 heh?" 
 
igS FREE AIR 
 
 " We're motoring through." 
 
 "Heh? Who's that man?" 
 
 " He's my father, madam." 
 
 " Needn't to be so hoity-toity about it, ' he's my 
 father, madam ! ' F' that matter, that thing there is 
 my husband ! " 
 
 The man had been dusting his shabby coat, stroking 
 his mustache, smiling with sickly gallantry. He bur- 
 bled, " Shut up, Teenie. This lady is all right. Give 
 her a room. Number 2 is empty, and I guess Number 
 7 has been made up since Bill left — if 'tain't, the sheets 
 ain't been slept on but one night." 
 
 " Where d' you come " 
 
 " Now don't go shooting off a lot of questions at 
 the lady, Teenie. I'll show her the rooms." 
 
 The woman turned on her husband. He was per- 
 haps twenty-five years younger; a quarter-century less 
 soaked in hideousness. Her yellow, concave-sided 
 teeth were bared at him, her mouth drew up on one 
 side above the gums. " Pete, if I hear one word more 
 out of you, out you go. Lady ! Huh ! Where d' you 
 come from, young woman ? " 
 
 Claire was too weak to stagger away. She leaned 
 against the door. Her father struggled to speak, but 
 the woman hurled: 
 
 " Wherdjuhcomf romised ! " 
 
 " From New York. Is there another hotel " 
 
 " Nah, there ain't another hotel ! Oh ! So you come 
 
FREE AIR 199 
 
 from New York, do you? Snobs, that's what N' 
 Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be 
 two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra." 
 
 The woman led them up-stairs. Claire wanted to 
 
 flee, but Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! 
 
 She couldn't! 
 
 The floor of her room was the more bare in con- 
 trast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain 
 carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed 
 was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. 
 The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The 
 wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She 
 had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone 
 Park. She had forgotten how badly human beings can 
 live. She protested : 
 
 " Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge 
 for this!" 
 
 " I didn't say two dollars. I said three ! Three 
 each for you and your pa. If you don't like it you 
 can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen 
 miles!" 
 
 " Why the extra dollar — or extra two dollars? " 
 
 "Don't you see that carpet? These is our best 
 
 rooms. And three dollars I know you New 
 
 Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged 
 him five dollars — five dol-lars! — for a room in New 
 York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and 
 wanted a short-bit and " 
 
200 FREEAIR 
 
 " Oh — all — right ! Can we get something to eat ? " 
 
 "Now!?" 
 
 " We haven't eaten since noon." 
 
 "That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding 
 around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at 
 home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night 
 cooking for people that come chassayin' in here God 
 
 knows what all hours of the day and night ! 
 
 There's an all-night lunch down the street." 
 
 When she was alone Claire cried a good deal. 
 
 Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. 
 The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked 
 through his door; he was shivering; he was going 
 right to bed. 
 
 " Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich." 
 
 " Safe to go out alone ? " 
 
 " Anything's safe after facing that horrible I 
 
 do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring 
 you a hot-water bag." 
 
 She took the bag down to the office. The landlady 
 was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. 
 She glared. 
 
 " I wonder if I may have some hot water for my 
 father? He has a chill." 
 
 " Stove's out. No hot water in the house." 
 
 " Couldn't you heat some ? " 
 
 " Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking 
 for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut 
 
FREE AIR 20I 
 
 rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's 
 enough! " 
 
 The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. 
 " Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. 
 Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, 
 he done her out of four-bits ! But I'll tell you ! " he 
 leered. " You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll 
 heat you some water myself ! " 
 
 " Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night." 
 
 Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather com- 
 fortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Cafe, 
 with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He 
 nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her 
 order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt ad- 
 venturous. She polished her knife and fork on a 
 napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the 
 way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against 
 the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, 
 but she ignored them, and they drifted away. 
 
 The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? 
 Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?" 
 
 "Why yes. Is there another?" 
 
 " Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up." 
 
 " The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel." 
 
 " Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just 
 bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room ? " 
 
 " Three dollars." 
 
 " Per each ? Gee ! Well, she sticks tourists any- 
 
202 FREE AIR 
 
 wheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for 
 fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on 
 her husband. He comes from Spokane — nobody 
 knows why — guess he was run out. He takes some 
 kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy." 
 
 "But why does the town stand either of them? 
 Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why 
 don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they 
 belong?" 
 
 " That's a good one ! " her friend chuckled. But 
 he saw it only as a joke. 
 
 She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, 
 but she hadn't the strength. 
 
 Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went 
 through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at 
 one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had 
 recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rub- 
 ber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska 
 Cafe. At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. 
 She made her father eat his sandwich ; she teased him 
 and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved 
 his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, 
 and started for her own room, at the far end of the 
 hall. 
 
 The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and 
 she hesitated at the door of her room before she en- 
 tered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, 
 people watching her from a distance. She flung into 
 
FREE AIR 203 
 
 the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her 
 familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she 
 was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over 
 the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped 
 about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep 
 seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she 
 started awake. 
 
 But only slowly did she admit to herself that she 
 actually did hear a fumbling, hear the knob of her 
 door turning. 
 
 "W-who's there?" 
 
 " It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the 
 hot water." 
 
 " Thanks so much, but I don't need it now." 
 
 " Got something else for you. Come to the door. 
 Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up." 
 
 At the door she said timorously, " Nothing else I 
 want, thank you. D-don't bother me." 
 
 " Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all 
 nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill 
 off." 
 
 " I don't want it, I tell you ! " 
 
 " Be a sport now ! You use Pete right, and he'll use 
 you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' 
 no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich ! " 
 The knob rattled again. She said nothing. The heel 
 of her palm pressed against the door till the molding 
 ate into it. The man was snorting : 
 
204 FREE AIR 
 
 " I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw 
 away a good sandwich. You asked me " 
 
 "M-must I s-shout?" 
 
 " S-shout your fool head off ! " He kicked the door, 
 " Good friends of mine, 'long this end of the hall. 
 Aw, listen. Just teasing. I'm not going to rob you, 
 little honey bird. Laws, you could have a million 
 dollars, and old Pete wouldn't take two-bits. I just 
 get so darn lonely in this hick town. Like to chat to 
 live ones from the big burg. I'm ^ city fella myself 
 — Spokane and Cheyenne and everything." 
 
 In her bare feet, Claire had run across the room, 
 looked desperately out of the window. Could she 
 climb out, reach her friend of the Alaska Cafe? If 
 she had to 
 
 Then she grinned. The world was rose-colored 
 and hung with tinkling bells. " I love even that 
 Pinky person ! " she said. In the yard of the hotel, 
 beside her Gomez, was a Teal bug, and two men were 
 sleeping in blankets on the ground. 
 
 She marched over to the door. She flung it open. 
 The man started back. He was holding an electric 
 torch. She could not see him, but to the hovering ball 
 of light she remarked, " Two men, friends of mine, are 
 below, by their car. You will go at once, or I'll call 
 them. If you think I am bluffing, go down and look. 
 Good night!" 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 THE FREE WOMAN 
 
 BEFORE breakfast, Claire darted down to the 
 hotel yard. She beamed at Milt, who was lacing 
 a rawhide patch on a tire, before she remembered that 
 they were not on speaking terms. They both looked 
 extremely sheepish and young. It was Pinky Parrott 
 ■who was the social lubricant. Pinky was always on 
 speaking terms with everybody. " Ah, here she is ! 
 The little lady of the mutinous eyes! Our colonel of 
 the flivver hussars ! " 
 
 But he got no credit. Milt straightened up and 
 lumbered, "Hel-lo!" 
 
 She peeped at him and whispered, " Hel-lo ! " 
 
 " Say, oh please, Claire I didn't mean " 
 
 " Oh, I know ! Let's — ^let's go have breakfast." 
 "Was awfully afraid you'd think we were fresh, 
 but when we came in last night, and saw your car — 
 didn't like the looks of the hotel much, and thought 
 we'd stick around." 
 
 " I'm so glad. Oh, Milt — ^yes, and you, Mr. Par- 
 rott — ^will you whip — lick — beat up — however you 
 want to say it — somebody for me? " 
 
 With one glad communal smile Milt and Pinky 
 
 205 
 
2o6 FREE AIR 
 
 curved up their wrists and made motions as of pulling 
 up their sleeves. 
 
 " But not unless I say so. I want to be a Citizeness 
 Fixit. I've been good for so long. But now " 
 
 " Show him to me! " and "'Up, lads, and atum! " 
 responded her squad. 
 
 " Not till after breakfast." 
 
 It was a sufficiently vile breakfast, at the Tavern. 
 The feature was curious cakes whose interior was 
 raw creepy dough. A dozen skilled workmen were at 
 the same long table with Claire, Milt, Pinky, and Mr. 
 Boltwood — the last two of whom were polite and 
 scenically descriptive to each other, but portentously 
 silent about gold-mines. The landlady and a slavey 
 waited on table; the landlord could be seen loafing in 
 the kitchen. 
 
 Toward the end of the meal Claire insultingly 
 crooked her finger at the landlady and said, " Come 
 here, woman." 
 
 The landlady stared, then ignored her. 
 
 "Very well. Then I'll say it publicly!" Claire 
 swept the workmen with an affectionate smile. 
 " Gentlemen of Pellago, I want you to know from one 
 of the poor tourists who have been cheated at this 
 nasty place that we depend on you to do something. 
 This woman and her husband are criminals, in the 
 way they overcharge for hideous food and " 
 
 The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged 
 
FREE AIR 207 
 
 down. Behind her came her husband. Milt arose. 
 The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced 
 the landlady, tapped her shoulder, and launched into, 
 " And what's more, you hag, if our new friends here 
 have any sense, they'll run you out of town." 
 
 That was only the beginning of Pinky's paper on 
 corrections and charities. He enjoyed himself. Be- 
 fore he finished, the landlady was crying . . . she 
 voluntarily promised to give her boarders waffles, some 
 morning, jus' soon as she could find the waffle-iron. 
 
 With her guard about her, at the office desk, Claire 
 paid one dollar apiece for the rooms, and discussion 
 was not. 
 
 Before they started. Milt had the chance to say to 
 her, " I'm getting so I can handle Pinky now. Have 
 to. Thinking of getting hold of his gold-mine. I 
 just give him the eye, as your friend Mr. Saxton 
 would, and he gets so meek " 
 
 " But don't! Please understand me, Milt; I do ad- 
 mire Mr. Saxton; he is fine and capable, and really 
 
 generous; only He may be just a bit snippish at 
 
 times, while you — ^you're a playmate — father's and 
 
 mine — and I did face that landlady, didn't I! 
 
 I'm not soft and trivial, am I ! Praise! " 
 
 She had driven through the panhandle of Idaho 
 into Washington, through Spokane, through the writh- 
 ing lava deposits of Moses Coulee where fruit trees 
 
2o8 FREE AIR 
 
 grow; on volcanic ash. Beyond Wenatchee, with its 
 rows of apple trees striping the climbing fields like 
 corduroy in folds, she had come to the famous climb 
 of Blewett Pass. Once over that pass, and Snoqual- 
 mie, she would romp into Seattle. 
 
 She was sorry that she hadn't come to know Milt 
 better, but perhaps she would see him in Seattle. 
 
 Not adventure alone was she finding, but high in- 
 tellectual benefit in studying the names of towns in the 
 state of Washington. Not Kankakee nor Kalamazoo 
 nor Oshkosh can rival the picturesque fancy of Wash- 
 ington, and Claire combined the town-names in a lyric 
 so emotion-stirring that it ought, perhaps, to be the 
 national anthem. It ran: 
 
 Humptulips, Turn Turn, Moclips, Yelm, 
 Satsop, Bucoda, Omak, Enumclaw, 
 Tillicum, Bossburg, Chettlo, Chattaroy, 
 Zillah, Selah, Cowiche, Keechelus, 
 Bluestem, Bluelight, Onion Creek, Sockeye, 
 Antwine, Chopaka, Startup, Kapowsin, 
 Skamokawa, Sixprong, Pysht! 
 
 Klickitat, Kittitas, Spangle, Cedonia, 
 Pe Ell, Cle Elum, Sallal, Chimacum, 
 Index, Taholah, Synarep, Puyallup, 
 Wallula, Wawawai, Wauconda, Washougal, 
 Walla Walla, Washtucna, Wahluke, 
 
 , Solkulk, Newaukum, Wahkiakus, 
 
 ' Penawawa, Ohop, Ladd ! 
 
FREEAIR ao9 
 
 Harrah, Olalla, Umtanum, Chuckanut, 
 Soap Lake, Loon Lake, Addy, Ace, Usk, 
 Chillowist, Moxee City, Yellepit, Cashup, 
 Moonax, Mabton, Tolt, Mukilteo, 
 Poulsbo, Toppenish, Whetstone, Inchelium, 
 Fishtrap, Carnation, Shine, Monte Cristo, 
 Conconully, Roza, Maud! 
 
 China Bend, Zumwalt, Sapolil, Riffle, 
 Touchet, Chesaw, Chew, Klum, Bly, 
 Humorist, Hammer, Nooksack, Oso, 
 Samamish, Dusty, Tiger, Turk, Dot, 
 Scenic, Tekoa, Nellita, Attalia, 
 Steilacoom, Tweedle, Ruff, Lisabeula, 
 Latah, Peola, Towal, Eltopia, 
 
 Steptoe, Pluvius, Sol Due, Twisp ! 
 
 " And then," complained Claire, " they talk about 
 Amy Lowell ! I leave it to you, Henry B., if any union 
 poet has ever written as gay a refrain as ' Ohop 
 Ladd ' ! " 
 
 She was not merely playing mental whist. She was 
 trying to keep from worry. All the way she had heard 
 of Blewett Pass; its fourteen miles of climbing, and 
 the last half mile of stern pitch. On this eastern side 
 of the pass, the new road was not open; there was a 
 tortuous, flint-scattered trail, too narrow, in most 
 places, for the passing of other cars. Claire was glad 
 that Milt and Pinky were near her. 
 
 If so many of the race of kind advisers of tourists 
 
2IO FREE AIR 
 
 had not warned her about it, doubtless she would have 
 gone over the pass without difficulty. But their vol- 
 untary croaking sapped her nerve, and her father's. 
 He kept worrying, " Do you think we better try it? " 
 When they stopped at a ranch house at the foot of the 
 climb, for the night, he seemed unusually tired. He 
 complained of chill. He did not eat breakfast. They 
 started out silent, depressed. 
 
 He crouched in the corner of the seat. She looked 
 at him and was anxious. She stopped on the first 
 level space on the pass, crying, " You are perfectly 
 
 miserable. I'm afraid of I think we ought to 
 
 see a doctor." 
 
 " Oh, I'll be all right." 
 
 But she waited till Milt came pit-pattering up the 
 slope. "Father feels rather sick. What shall I do? 
 Turn round and drive to the nearest doctor — at Cash- 
 mere, I suppose ? " 
 
 " There's a magnolious medico ahead here on the 
 pass," Pinky Parrott interrupted. " A young thing, 
 but they say he's a graduate of Harvard. He's out 
 here because he has some timber-claims. Look, Milt 
 o' the Daggett, why don't you drive Miss Boltwood's 
 'bus— make better time, and hustle the old gent, up to 
 the doc, and I'll come on behind with your machine." 
 
 " Why," Claire fretted, " I hate " 
 
 A new Milt, the boss, abrupt, almost bullying, 
 snapped out of his bug. " Good idee. Jump in, Claire. 
 
FREE AIR 211 
 
 I'll take your father up. Heh, whasat, Pink ? Yes, I 
 get it; second turn beyond grocery. Right. On we 
 go. Huh ? Oh, we'll think about the gold-mine later, 
 Pink." 
 
 With the three of them wedged into the seat of the 
 Gomez, and Pinky recklessly skittering after them in 
 the bug, they climbed again — and lo! there was no 
 climb! Unconsciously Claire had hesitated before 
 dashing at each sharp upsloping bend ; had lost head- 
 way while she was wondering, " Suppose the car went 
 oflf this curve?" Milt never sped up, but he never 
 slackened. His driving was as rhythmical as music. 
 
 They were so packed in that he could scarcely reach 
 gear lever and hand-brake. He halted on a level, and 
 curtly asked, "That trap-door in the back of the car 
 — convertible extra seat?" 
 
 " Yes, but we almost never use it, and it's stuck. 
 Can't get it open." 
 
 " I'n open it all riglit ! Got a big screwdriver ? 
 Want you sit back there. Need elbow room." 
 
 " Perhaps I'd better drive with Mr. Pinky." 
 
 " Nope. Don't think better." 
 
 With one yank he opened the trap-door, revealing a 
 folding seat, which she meekly took. Back there, she 
 reflected, " How strong his back looks. Funny how 
 the little silvery hairs grow at the back of his neck." 
 
 They came to a settlement and the red cedar bunga- 
 low of Dr. Hooker Beach. The moment Claire saw 
 
212 FREE AIR 
 
 the doctor's thin demanding face, she trusted him. He 
 spoke to Mr. Boltwood with assurance : " All you need 
 is some rest, and your digestion is a little shaky. Been 
 eating some pork? Might stay here a day or two. 
 We're glad to have a glimpse of Easterners." 
 
 Mr. Boltwood went to bed in the Beaches' guest- 
 room. Mrs. Beach gave Claire and Milt lunch, with 
 thin toast and thin china, on a porch from which an 
 arroyo dropped down for a hundred feet. Fir trees 
 scented the air, and a talking machine played the same 
 Russian music that was popular that same moment in 
 New York. And the Beaches knew people who knew 
 Claire. 
 
 Claire was thinking. These people were genuine 
 aristocrats, while Jeff Saxton, for all his family and 
 his assumptions about life, was the eternal climber. 
 Milt, who had been uncomfortable with Jeff, was 
 serene and un-self-conscious with the Beaches, and the 
 doctor gratefully took his advice about his stationary 
 gas engine. " He's rather like the Beaches in his 
 simplicity — ^yes, and his ability to do anything if he 
 considers it worth while," she decided. 
 
 After lunch, when the doctor and his wife had to 
 trot ofif to a patient, Claire proposed, " Let's walk up 
 to that ledge of rock and see the view, shall we, Milt ? " 
 
 " Yes ! And keep an eye on the road for Pinky. 
 The poor nut, he hasn't showed up. So reckless; hope 
 he hasn't driven the Teal off the road." 
 
FREE AIR 213 
 
 She crouched at the edge of a rock, where she would 
 have been frightened, a month before, and looked 
 across the main road to a creek in a pine-laced gully. 
 He sat beside her, elbows on knees. 
 
 " Those Beaches — their kin are judges and senators 
 and college Presidents, all over New England," she 
 said. " This doctor must be the grandson of the am- 
 bassador, I fancy." 
 
 "Honest? I thought they were just regular folks. 
 Was I nice?" 
 
 " Of course you were." 
 
 " Did I — did I wash my paws and sit up and beg? " 
 
 " No, you aren't a little dog. I'm that. You're the 
 big mastifJF that guards the house, while I run and 
 yip." She was turned toward him, smiling. Her hand 
 was beside him. He touched the back of it with his 
 forefinger, as though he was afraid he might soil it. 
 
 There seemed to be no reason, but he was trembling 
 as he stammered, " I — I — I'm d-darn glad I didn't 
 know they were anybody, or 'd have been as bad as a 
 flivver driver the first time he tries a t-twelve-cylinder 
 machine. G-gee your hand is little ! " 
 
 She took it back and inspected it. " I suppose it is. 
 And pretty useless." 
 
 " N-no, it isn't, but your shoes are. Why don't you 
 wear boots when you're out like this?" A flicker of 
 his earlier peremptoriness came into his voice. She 
 resented it: 
 
214 FREE AIR 
 
 " My shoes are perfectly sensible ! I will not wear 
 those horrible vegetarian uplift sacks on my feet! " 
 
 " Your shoes may be all right for New York, but 
 you're not going to New York for a while. You've 
 simply got to see some of this country while you're 
 out here — British Columbia and Alaska." 
 
 " Would be nice, but I've had enough rough- 
 ing " 
 
 " Chance to see the grandest mountains in the world, 
 almost, and then you want to go back to tea and all 
 that junk ! " 
 
 " Stop trying to bully me ! You have been dicta- 
 torial ever since we started up " 
 
 " Have I ? Didn't mean to be. Though I suppose 
 I usually am bullying. At least I run things. There's 
 two kinds of people; those that give orders, and those 
 that naturally take them ; and I belong to the first one, 
 and " 
 
 " But my dear Milt, so do I, and really " 
 
 " And mostly I'd take them from you. But hang 
 it, Seattle is just a day away, and you'll forget me. 
 Wish I could kidnap you. Have half a mind to. Take 
 you way up into the mountains, and when you got used 
 to roughing it in sure-enough wilderness — say you'd 
 helped me haul timber for a flume — then we'd be real 
 pals. You have the stufif in you, but you still need 
 toughening before " 
 
 " Listen to me, Milton. You have been reading fie- 
 
FREE AIR 2IS 
 
 tion, about this man — sometimes he's a lumberjack, 
 and sometimes a trapper or a miner, but always he's 
 frightfully hairy — and he sees a charming woman in 
 the city, and kidnaps her, and shuts her up in some 
 unspeakable shanty, and makes her eat nice cold boiled 
 potatoes, and so naturally, she simply adores him! 
 A hundred men have written that story, and it's an 
 example of their insane masculine conceit, which I, as 
 a woman, resent. Shakespeare may have started it, 
 with his silly Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare's 
 men may have been real, but his women were dolls, de- 
 signed to please some majesty. You may not know it, 
 but there are women today who don't live just to please 
 majesties' fancies. If a woman like me were kid- 
 napped, she would go on hating the brute, or if she 
 did give in, then the man would lose anyway, because 
 she would have degenerated ; she'd have turned into a 
 slave, and lost exactly the things he'd liked in her. 
 Oh, you cavemen! With your belief that you can 
 force women to like you! I have more courage than 
 any of you! " 
 
 " I admit you have courage, but you'd have still 
 more, if you bucked the wilds." 
 
 " Nonsense I In New York I face every day a 
 hundred complicated problems you don't know I ever 
 heard of!" 
 
 " Let me remind you that Brer Julius Caesar said 
 he'd rather be mayor in a little Spanish town than 
 
2i6 FREE AIR 
 
 police commissioner in Rome. I'm king in Schoen- 
 strom, while you're just one of a couple hundred 
 thousand bright people in New York " 
 
 " Really ? Oh, at least a million. Thanks ! " 
 
 " Oh — gee— Claire, I didn't mean to be personal, 
 and get in a row and all, but — can't you see — ^kind of 
 desperate — Seattle so soon " 
 
 Her face was turned from him; its thin profile was 
 firm as silver wire. He blundered off into silence and 
 — they were at it again ! 
 
 " I didn't mean to make you angry," he gulped. 
 
 " Well, you did ! Bullying You and your mea 
 
 of granite, in mackinaws and a much-needed shave, 
 trying to make a well-bred woman satisfied with a 
 view consisting of rocks and stumps and socks on the 
 line! Let me tell you that compared with a street 
 canyon, a mountain canyon is simply dead, and yet 
 these unlettered wild men " 
 
 " See here ! I don't know if you're firing these ad- 
 jectives at me, but I don't know that I'm so much 
 
 more unlettered You talked about taking French 
 
 in your finishing-school. Well, they taught A"merican 
 in mine ! " 
 
 "They would!" 
 
 Then he was angry. " Yes, and diemistry and 
 physics and Greek and Latin and history and mathe- 
 matics and economics, and I took more or less of a 
 whirl at all of them, while you were fiddling with 
 
FREE AIR 217 
 
 ribbons, and then I had to buck mechanics and busi- 
 ness methods." 
 
 " I also ' fiddled ' with manners — an unfortunate 
 omission in your curriculum, I take it ! You have been 
 reasonably rude " 
 
 " So have you! " 
 
 " I had to be ! But I trust you begin to see that even 
 your strong hand couldn't control a woman's taste. 
 Kidnapping! As intelligent a boy as you wanting to 
 imitate these boorish movie " 
 
 " Not a darn bit more boorish than your smart set, 
 with its champagne and these orgies at country 
 clubs " 
 
 " You know so much about country clubs, don't 
 you ! The worst orgy I ever saw at one was the golf 
 champion reading the beauty department in Boudoir. 
 Would you mind backing up your statements about the 
 vices of myself and my friends " 
 
 " Oh, you. Oh, I didn't mean " 
 
 " Then why did you " 
 
 " Now you're bullying me, and you know that if the 
 smart set isn't vicious, at least it's so snobbish that it 
 can't see any " 
 
 " Then it's wise to be snobbish, because if it did 
 condescend " 
 
 " I won't stand people talking about condescend- 
 
 ing " 
 
 " Would you mind not shouting so ? " 
 
3i8 FREE AIR 
 
 
 
 "Very well! I'll keep still ! " 
 
 Silence again, while both of them looked unhappy, 
 and tried to remember just what they had been fight- 
 ing about. They did not at first notice a small red car 
 larruping gaily over the f'oad beneath the ledge, 
 though the driver was a pink-haired man in a green 
 coat. He was almost gone before Milt choked, " It's 
 Pinky!" 
 
 " Pink ! Pinky ! " he bellowed. 
 
 Pinky looked back but, instead of stopping, he sped 
 up, and kept going. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 THE MINE OF LOST SOULS 
 
 THAT couldn't have been Pinky! Why! Why, 
 the car he had was red," cried Claire. 
 
 " Sure. The idiot's got hold of some barn paint 
 somewhere, and tried to daub it over. He's trying to 
 make a getaway with it ! " 
 
 " We'll chase him. In my car." 
 
 "Don't you mind?" 
 
 "Of course not. I do not give up my objections to 
 
 the roughing philosophy, but You were right 
 
 about these shoes Oh, don't leave me behind! 
 
 Want to go along I " 
 
 These sentences she broke, scattered, and totally lost 
 as she scrambled after him, down the rocks. He 
 halted. His lips trembled. He picked her up, carried 
 her down, hesitated a second while his face — curiously 
 foreshortened as she looked up at it from his big 
 arms — twisted with emotion. He set her down gently, 
 and she climbed into the Gomez. 
 
 It seemed to her that he drove rather too carefully, 
 too slowly. He took curves and corners evenly. His 
 face was as empty of expression, as unmelodramatic, 
 as that of a jitney driver. Then she looked at the 
 
 3I« 
 
220 FREE AIR 
 
 speedometer. He was making forty-eight miles an 
 hour down hill and forty to thirty on upgrades. 
 
 They were in sight of the fleeing Pinky in two milei;. 
 Pinky looked back; instantly was to be seen pulling 
 his hat low, stooping over — the demon driver. Milt 
 merely sat more erect, looked more bland and white- 
 browed and steady. 
 
 The bug fled before them on a winding shelf road. 
 It popped up a curve, then slowed down. " He took it 
 too fast. Poor Pink!;' said Milt. 
 
 They gained on that upslope, but as the road 
 dropped, the bug started forward desperately. An- 
 other car was headed toward them; was drawn to the 
 side of the road, in one of the occasional widenings. 
 Pinky passed it so carelessly that, with crawling spine, 
 Claire saw the outer wheels of the bug on the very 
 edge of the road — the edge of a fifty-foot drop. Milt 
 went easily past the halted car — even waved his hand 
 to the waiting driver. 
 
 This did not seem to Claire at all like the chase 
 of a thief. She looked casually ahead at Pinky, as he 
 whirled round an S-shaped curve on the downslope, 
 
 then It was too quick to see what happened. 
 
 The bug headed directly toward the edge of the road, 
 shot out, went down the embankment, over and over. 
 It lay absurdly upside-down, its muffler and brake- 
 rods showing in place of the seat and hood. 
 
 Milt quite carefully stopped the Gomez. The day 
 
FREE AIR 221 
 
 was still — just a breathing of running water in the 
 deep gully. The topsy-turvy car below them was 
 equally still; no sight of Pinky, no sound. 
 
 The gauche boy gone from him, Milt took her hand, 
 pressed it to his cheek. " Claire ! You're here ! You 
 
 might have gone with him, to make room Oh, I 
 
 was bullying you because I was bullying myself ! Try- 
 ing to make myself tell you — but oh, you know, you 
 know ! Can you stand going down there ? I hate to 
 have you, but you may be needed." 
 
 " Yes. I'll come," she whispered. 
 
 Their crawl down the rock-rolling embankment 
 seemed desperately slow. 
 
 " Wait here," bade Milt, at the bottom. 
 
 She looked away from the grotesque car. She had 
 seen that one side of it was crumpled like paper in an 
 impatient hand. 
 
 Milt was stooping, looking under; seemed to be say- 
 ing something. When he came back, he did not speak. 
 He wiped his forehead. " Come. We'll climb back 
 up. Nothing to do, now. Guess you better not try 
 to help, anyway. You might not sleep well." 
 
 He gave her his hand up the embankment, drove to 
 the nearest house, telephoned to Dr. Beach. Later she 
 waited while Milt and the doctor, with two other men, 
 were raising the car. As she waited she thought of 
 the Teal bug as a human thing — as her old friend, 
 to which she had often turned in need. 
 
222 FREE AIR 
 
 Milt returned to her. " There is one thing for 
 you to do. Before he died. Pinky asked me to go 
 get his wife — Dolores, I think it is. She's up in a 
 side canyon, few miles away. She may want a woman 
 around. Beach will take care of — of him. Can you 
 come ? " 
 
 " Of course. Oh, Milt, I didn't " 
 
 " I didn't " 
 
 " — mean you were a caveman! You're my big 
 brother!" 
 
 " — mean you were a snob ! " 
 
 They drove five miles along the highway, then up a 
 trail where the Gomez brushed the undergrowth on 
 each side as it desperately dug into moss, rain-gutted 
 ruts, loose rocks, all on a vicious slant which seemed to 
 push the car down again. Beside them, the mountain 
 woods were sacredly quiet, with fern and lily and 
 green-lit spaces. They came out in a clearing, before 
 dusk. Beside the clearing was a brook, with a crude 
 cradle — sign of a not very successful gold miner. Be- 
 fore a log cabin, in a sway-sided rocker, creaked a 
 tall, white, flabby woman, once nearly beautiful, now 
 rubbed at the edges. She rose, huddling her wrapper 
 about her bosom, as they drove into the clearing and 
 picked their way through stumps and briars. 
 
 " Where you folks think you're going? " she whim- 
 pered. 
 
 " Why, why just " 
 
FREE AIR 223 
 
 " I cer'niy am glad to see somebody ! I been 'most 
 scared to death. Been here alone two weeks now. Got 
 a shotgun, but if anybody come, I guess they'd take 
 it away from me. I was brought up nice, no rough- 
 house or Say, did you folks come to see the 
 
 gold-mine?" 
 
 "M-mine?" babbled Milt. 
 
 " Course not. Pinky said I was to show it, but I'm 
 so sore on that low-life hound now, I swear I won't 
 even take the trouble and lie about it. No more gold 
 in that crick than there is in my eye. Or than there's 
 flour or pork in the house ! " 
 
 The woman's voice was rising. Her gestures were 
 furious. Claire and Milt stood close, their hands slip- 
 ping together. 
 
 " What d' you think of a man that'd go off and leave 
 a lady without half enough to eat, while he gallivanted 
 around, trying to raise money by gambling, when he 
 was offered a good job up here? He's a gambler — 
 told me he was a rich mine-owner, but never touched 
 a mine in his life. Lying hound — worst talker in ten 
 counties! Got a gambler's hand on him, too — I ought 
 to seen it ! Oh, wait till I get hold of him ; just wait ! " 
 
 Claire thought of the still hand — so still — that she 
 had seen under the edge of the upturned car. She tried 
 to speak, while the woman raved on, wrath feeding 
 wrath : 
 
 " Thank God, I ain't really his wife! My husband 
 
224 FREE AIR 
 
 is a fine man — Mr. Kloh — Dlorus Kloh, my name is. 
 Mr. Kloh's got a fine job with the mill, at North 
 Yakima. Oh, I was a fool ! This gambler Pinky Par- 
 rott, he comes along with his elegant ways, and he 
 hands me out a swell line of gab, and I ups and leaves 
 
 poor Kloh, and the kid, and the nicest kid Say, 
 
 please, could you folks take me wherever you're going? 
 Maybe I could get a job again — ^used to was a good 
 waitress, and I ain't going to wait here any longer for 
 that lying, cheating, mean-talking " 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Kloh, please don't ! He's dead ! " wailed 
 Claire. 
 
 "Dead? Pinky? Oh— my— God! And I won't 
 ever see him, and he was so funny and " 
 
 She threw herself on the ground; she kicked her 
 heels; she tore at her loosely caught, tarnished blonde 
 hair. 
 
 Claire knelt by her. " You mustn't — you mustn't 
 —we'll " 
 
 " Damn you, with your smug-faced husband there, 
 and your fine auto and all, butting into poor folks' 
 troubles ! " shrieked Dlorus. 
 
 Claire stumbled to her feet, stood with her clenched 
 right hand to her trembling lips, cupping it with her 
 nervous left hand. Her shoulders were dejected. 
 Milt pleaded, " Let's hike out. I don't mind decent 
 honest grease, but this place — look in at table ! Dirty 
 dishes And gin bottles on the floor ! " 
 
FREE AIR 225 
 
 "Desert her? When she needs me so?" Qaire 
 started forward, but Milt caught her sleeve, and ad- 
 mired, "You were right! You've got more nerve 
 than I have!" 
 
 " No. I wouldn't dare if I'm glad you're here 
 
 with me ! " 
 
 Claire calmed the woman; bound up her hair; 
 virashed her face — which needed it; and sat on the log 
 doorstep, holding Dlorus's head in her lap, while 
 Dlorus sobbed, " Pinky — dead ! Him that was so 
 lively! And he was so sweet a lover, oh, so sweet. 
 He was a swell fellow; my, he could just make you 
 laugh and cry, the way he talked; and he was so 
 educated, and he played the vi'lin — he could do any- 
 thing — and athaletic — ^he would have made me rich. 
 Oh, let me alone. I just want to be alone and think 
 of him. I was so bored with Kloh, and no nice dresses 
 or nothin', and — I did love the kid, but he squalled so, 
 just all the time, and Pinky come, and he was so 
 funny Oh, let me alone ! " 
 
 Claire shivered, then, and the strength seemed to 
 go from the steady arms that had supported Dlorus's 
 head. Dusk had sneaked up on them ; the clearing was 
 full of swimming grayness, and between the woman's 
 screams, the woods crackled. Each time Dlorus spoke, 
 her screech was like that of an animal in the woods, 
 and round about them crept such sinister echoes that 
 Milt kept wanting to look back over his shoulder. 
 
226 FREE AIR 
 
 " Yes," sighed Claire at last, " perhaps we'd better 
 
 go- 
 
 " If you go, I'll kill myself ! Take me to Mr. Kloh ! 
 
 Oh, he was My husband, Mr. Kloh. Oh, so 
 
 good. Only he didn't understand a lady has to have 
 her good times, and Pink danced so well " 
 
 Dlorus sprang up, flung into the cabin, stood in the 
 dimness of the doorway, holding a butcher knife and 
 clamoring, " I will! I'll kill myself if you leave me! 
 Take me down to Mr. Kloh, at North Yakima, to- 
 night!" 
 
 Milt sauntered toward her. 
 
 "Don't you get flip, young man! I mean it! 
 And I'll kill you " 
 
 Most unchivalrously, quite out of the picture of 
 gray grief, Milt snapped, " That'll be about enough 
 of you! Here! Gimme that knife!" 
 
 She dropped the knife, sniveling, "Oh Gawd, some- 
 body's always bullying me! And all I wanted was a 
 good time ! " 
 
 Claire herded her into the cabin. " We'll take you 
 to your husband — tonight. Come, let's wash up, and 
 I'll help you put on your prettiest dress." 
 
 "Honest, will you?" cried the woman, in high 
 spirits, all grief put aside. " I got a dandy China 
 silk dress, and some new white kid shoes! My, Mr. 
 Kloh, he won't hardly know me. He'll take me back. 
 I know how to handle him. That'll be swell, going 
 
FREE AIR 227 
 
 back in an automobile. And I got a new hair-comb, 
 with genuine Peruvian diamonds. Say, you aren't 
 kidding me along? " 
 
 In the light of the lantern Milt had kindled, Claire 
 looked questioningly at him. Both of them shrugged. 
 Claire promised, " Yes. Tonight. If we can make 
 it." 
 
 " And will you jolly Mr. Kloh for me? Gee, I'll be 
 awfully scared of him. I swear, I'll wash his dishes 
 
 and everything. He's a good man. He Say, he 
 
 ain't seen my new parasol, neither!" 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 ACROSS THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 
 
 CLAIRE dressed Dlorus, cooked a dinner of beet 
 greens, potatoes, and trout ; and by bullying and 
 great sweetness kept Dlorus from too many trips to 
 the gin bottle. Milt caught the trout, cut wood, locked 
 in a log shed Pinky's forlorn mining-tools. They 
 started for North Yakima at eight of the evening, with 
 Dlorus, back in the spare seat, alternately sobbing and 
 to inattentive ears announcing what she'd say to the 
 Old Hens. 
 
 Milt was devoted to persuading the huge cat of a 
 car to tiptoe down the slippery gouged ruts of the 
 road, and Qaire's mind was driving with him. Every 
 time he touched the foot-brake, she could feel the 
 strain in the tendons of her own ankle. 
 
 A mile down the main road they stopped at a store- 
 postoffice to telephone back to Mr. Boltwood and Dr. 
 Beach. On the porch was a man in overalls and laced 
 boots. He was lean and quick-moving. As he raised 
 his head, and his spectacles flashed, Claire caught Milt's 
 arm and gasped, " Oh, my dear, I'm in a beautiful 
 state of nerves. For a moment I thought that was 
 Jeff Saxton. I bet it is his astral body ! " 
 
 " And you thought he was going to forbid your 
 
 228 
 
FREE AIR 229 
 
 running away on this fool expedition, and you were 
 scared," chuckled Milt, as they sat in the car. 
 
 "Of course I was! And I still am! I know what 
 he'll say afterward ! He is here, reasoning with me. 
 Oughtn't I to be sensible? Oughtn't I to have you 
 leave me at the Beaches' before you start — jolly jaunt 
 to take a strange woman to her presumably homicidal 
 husband! Why am I totally lacking in sense? Just 
 listen to what Jeff is saying!" 
 
 "Of course you ought to go back, and let me drive 
 alone. Absolutely insane, your " 
 
 " But you would like me to go along, wouldn't 
 you!" 
 
 " Like you to ? It's our last ride together, and that 
 bloomin' old Browning never thought of a ride to- 
 gether by midnight over the roof of the world! No, 
 it's really our first ride together, and tomorrow — 
 you're gone." 
 
 " No, I sha'n't be gone, but " Addressing her- 
 self to the astounded overalled man on the porch, she 
 declared, " You're quite right, Jeff. And Milt is 
 wrong. Insane adventure. Only, it's wonderful to 
 be young enough to do insane adventures. Falling 
 down abyssy places is so much more interesting than 
 bridge. I'm going — going — going! . . . Milt, you 
 telephone." 
 
 "Don't you think you better?" 
 
 " No, siree ! Father would forbid me. Try not 
 
230 FREE AIR 
 
 to get him — just tell Dr. Beach where we're going, 
 and hang up, and scoot! " 
 
 All night they drove; down the Pacific side of 
 Blewett Pass; down the sweeping spirals to a valley. 
 DIorus drowsed in the extra seat. Claire's sleepy 
 head was fantastically swaying. She was awakened 
 by an approaching roar and, as though she sat at a 
 play, she watched a big racing machine coming toward 
 them, passing them with two wheels in the ditch. She 
 had only a thunderous glimpse of the stolid driver; a 
 dark, hooded, romantic figure, like a sailor at the 
 helm in a storm. 
 
 Milt cried, " Golly ! May be a transcontinental 
 racer! Be in New York in five days — going night 
 and day — take mud at fifty an hour — crack mechanic 
 right from the factory — change tires in three minutes 
 — people waiting up all night to give him gasoline 
 and a sandwich! That's my idea of fun! " 
 
 Studying Milt's shadowed face, Claire considered, 
 " He could do it, too. Sitting there at the wheel, 
 taking danger and good road with the same steadi- 
 ness. Oh, he's — well, anyway, he's a dear boy." 
 
 But what she said was: 
 
 " Less dramatic things for you, now, Milt. Trigo- 
 nometry is going to be your idea of fun; blueprints 
 and engineering books." 
 
 " Yes. I know. I'm going to do it. Do four 
 years' work in three — or two. I'll tack pages of 
 
FREE AIR 231 
 
 formulas on the wall, in my bum ballroom, and study 
 'em while I'm shaving. Oh, I'll be the grind! But 
 learn to dance the fox-trot, though! If America gets 
 into the war, I'll get into the engineering corps, and 
 come back to school afterward." 
 
 " Will the finances " 
 
 " I'll sell my garage, by mail. Rauskukle will take 
 it. He won't rob me of more than a thousand dollars 
 on price — not much more." 
 
 " You're going to love Seattle. And we'll have some 
 good tramps while I'm there, you and I." 
 
 " Honestly ? Will you want to ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose for one second I'd give up my 
 feeling of free air? If you don't come and get me, 
 I'll call on you and make you come! " 
 
 "Warn you I'll probably be living over some 
 beanery." 
 
 " Probably. With dirty steps leading up to it. I'll 
 sweep the steps. I'll cook supper for you. I can do 
 things, can't I ! I did manage Dlorus, didn't I ! " 
 
 He was murmuring, " Claire, dear ! " when she 
 changed her tone to the echo of Brooklyn Heights, 
 and hurried on, " You do understand, don't you ! 
 We'll be, uh, good friends." 
 
 " Yes." He drove with much speed and silence. 
 
 Though they were devouring the dark road, though 
 roadside rocks, caught by the headlights, seemed to 
 fly up at them, though they went on forever, chased 
 
232 FREE AIR 
 
 by a nightmare, Claire snuggled down in security. 
 Her head drooped against his shoulder. He put his 
 arm about her, his hand about her waist. She sleepily 
 wondered if she ought to let him. She heard herself 
 muttering, " Sorry I was so rude when you were so 
 rude," and her chilly cheek discovered that the smooth- 
 worn shoulder of his old blue coat was warm, and she 
 wondered some more about the questions of waists 
 and hands and She was asleep. 
 
 She awoke, bewildered to find that dawn was slip- 
 ping into the air. While she had slept Milt had taken 
 his arm from about her and fished out a lap-robe for 
 her. Behind them, Dlorus was slumbering, with her 
 soft mouth wide open. Claire felt the luxury of the 
 pocket of warmth under the lap-robe; she comfortably 
 stretched her legs while she pictured Milt driving on 
 all the night, rigid, tireless, impersonal as the en- 
 gineer of a night express. 
 
 They came into North Yakima at breakfast time, 
 and found the house of Mr. Kloh, a neat, bare, drab 
 frame box, with tight small front and back yards. 
 Dlorus was awake, and when she wasn't yawning, she 
 was enjoying being hysterical. 
 
 " Miss Boltwood," she whined, " you go iti and 
 jolly him up." 
 
 Milt begged, " Better let me do it, Claire." 
 
 They looked squarely at each other. " No, I think 
 I'd better," she decided. 
 
FREE AIR 233 
 
 " Right, Claire, but — I wish I could do more things 
 for you." 
 
 "I know!" 
 
 He lifted her stiff, cold little body from the car. 
 His hands under her arms, he held her on the running- 
 board an instant, her eyes level with his. " Little 
 sister — plucky little sister ! " he sighed. He lowered 
 her to the ground. 
 
 Claire knocked at the back door. To it came a 
 bald, tired man, in an apron wet at the knees. The 
 kitchen floor was soaped, and a scrubbing-brush rode 
 amid the seas. A rather dirty child clung to his 
 hand. "Trying to clean up, ma'am. Not very good 
 at it. I hope you ain't the Cruelty to Children lady. 
 Willy looks mussed, but fact is, I just can't get time 
 to wash the clothes, but he means a terrible lot to me. 
 What was it? Will you step in?" 
 
 Claire buttoned the child's rompers before she spoke. 
 Then: 
 
 " Mr. Kloh, I want to be perfectly honest with you. 
 I've had word from your wife. She's unhappy, and 
 she loves and admires you more than any other man in 
 the world, and I think she would come back — misses 
 the child so." 
 
 The man wiped his reddened hands. "I don't 
 
 know I don't wish her no harm. Trouble was, 
 
 I'm kind of pokey. I guess I couldn't give her any 
 good times. I used to try to go to dances with her, 
 
234 FREE AIR 
 
 but when I'd worked late, I'd get sleepy and 
 
 She's a beautiful woman, smart 's a whip, and I guess 
 I was too slow for her. No, she wouldn't never come 
 back to me." 
 
 "She's out in front of the house now — waiting!" 
 
 " Great Caesar's ghost, and the floor not scrubbed!" 
 With a squawk of anxiety he leaped on the scrubbing- 
 brush, and when Milt and Dlorus appeared at the door, 
 Mr. Kloh and Miss Claire Boltwood were wiping up 
 the kitchen floor. 
 
 Dlorus looked at them, arms akimbo, and sighed, 
 " Hello, Johnny, my, ain't it nice to be back, oh, you 
 had the sink painted, oh, forgive me, Johnny, I was 
 a bad ungrateful woman, I don't care if you don't 
 never take me to no more dances, hardly any, Willy 
 come here, dear, oh, he is such a sweet child, my, his 
 mouth is so dirty, will you forgive me, Johnny, is my 
 overcoat in the moth-balls?" 
 
 When Mr. Kloh had gone off to the mill — thrice 
 returning from the gate to kiss Dlorus and to thank 
 her rescuers — Claire sat down and yawningly lashed 
 off every inch of Dlorus's fair white skin : 
 
 "You're at it already; taking advantage of that 
 good man's forgiveness, and getting lofty with him, 
 and rather admiring yourself as a spectacular sinner. 
 You are a lazy, ignorant, not very clean woman, and 
 if you succeed in making Mr. Kloh and Willy happy, 
 it will be almost too big a job for you. Now if I 
 
FREE AIR 235 
 
 come back from Seattle and find you misbehaving 
 
 agam 
 
 Dlorus broke down. "You won't, miss! And I 
 will raise chickens, like he wanted, honest I will ! " 
 
 " Then you may let me have a room to take a 
 nap in, and perhaps Mr. Daggett could sleep in there 
 on the sofa, and we'll get rested before we start 
 back." 
 
 Both Milt and Dlorus meekly followed the boss. 
 
 It was noon before Milt and Claire woke, and dis- 
 covered that Dlorus had prepared for them scrambled 
 eggs and store celery, served on an almost clean table- 
 cloth. Mr. Kloh came home for lunch, and while 
 Dlorus sat on his lap in the living-room, and repeated 
 that she had been a "bad, naughty, 'ittle dirl — what 
 did the fellows say at the mill ? " Milt and Claire 
 sat dumpily on the back porch, regarding scenery 
 which featured of seven tin cans, a broken patent 
 washing-machine, and a rheumatic pear tree. 
 
 " I suppose we ought to start," groaned Claire. 
 
 " I have about as much nerve as a rabbit, and as 
 much punch as a bale of hay," Milt admitted. 
 
 "We're like two children that have been playing 
 too long." 
 
 " But don't want to go home ! " 
 
 " Quite ! Though I don't think much of your idea 
 of a playhouse — those tin cans. But it's better than 
 having to be grown-up." 
 
236 FREE AIR 
 
 In the midst of which chatter they realized that Mr. 
 Henry B. Boltwood and Dr. Hooker Beach had come 
 round the corner of the house, and were gaping at 
 them. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 THE GRAEL IN A BACK YARD IN YAKIMA 
 
 "T MUST say that you two have chosen a fine 
 
 J. pastoral scene ! " observed Mr. Boltwood. 
 
 " Hhhhhhhhow did you get here ? " gasped Claire. 
 
 " Auto 'bus over Blewett Pass, train here from 
 Ellensburg. That woman — everything all right?" 
 
 " Yes, everything's fine. We were just starting 
 back, sir," implored Milt. 
 
 "Huh!" 
 
 " Awfully sorry, sir, to take Claire on such a 
 hike " 
 
 " I don't blame you particularly. When that young 
 woman gets an idea into her head, the rest of us are 
 pawns. Why, even me — she's dragged me all over the 
 Rocky Mountains. And I will admit, Claire, that it's 
 been good for me. But I begin to feel human again, 
 and I think it's about time I took charge. We'll catch 
 the afternoon train for Seattle, Claire. The trip has 
 been extremely interesting, but I think perhaps we'll 
 call it enough. Daggett, want to get you to drive the 
 Gomez on to Seattle. Beach tells me your car is 
 completely wrecked. Lose any money in it? " 
 
 " No, sir. Had my roll in the bug. I'll have to 
 go back to it and get some clothes out of it, though." 
 
 237 
 
238 FREE AIR 
 
 " Well, then, will you drive my car in ? Charge 
 me anywhere up to fifty dollars, if you want to " 
 
 " I'd rather not " 
 
 " It's a perfectly honest job — I'd do it, too quick ! 
 Or if your confounded pride won't let you charge 
 anything, bring the car on anyway. Come, dolly, I 
 have a jitney here, please observe my graceful use of 
 ' jitney,' and I have the bags. We'll hustle to the 
 station now. No! No arguments, chick!" 
 
 On the station platform, Claire and Milt were under 
 the surveillance of Mr. Boltwood, who was extremely 
 irritable as every two minutes the train was reported 
 to be two minutes later. They tramped up and down, 
 speaking in lowered voices, very meek but in their 
 joint naughtiness very intimate. 
 
 " That was a nice place to end a transcontinental 
 drive — in the back yard of Mr. Johnny Kloh, with 
 an unrestricted view of tin cans ! " lamented Claire. 
 
 " Still, your drive didn't end at Kloh's; it ended 
 way up in the mountains." 
 
 Mr. Boltwood bumbled down on them : " Another 
 minute late ! Like to know what the matter is ! " 
 
 "Yes, father!" 
 
 When Mr. Boltwood's impatiently waiting back was 
 turned, Claire gripped Milt's hand, and whispered to 
 him, " You see, I'm captured ! I thought I was 
 father's lord and chauffeur, but he sniffs the smoke 
 of the ticker. In his mind, he's already back in the 
 
FREE AIR 239 
 
 office, running things. He'll probably turn me over to 
 Jeff, for disciplining ! You won't let them change me 
 back into a pink-face, will you? Come to tea, at the 
 Gilsons', just as soon as you reach Seattle." 
 
 " Tea Now we're so near your Gilsons, I 
 
 begin to get scared. Wouldn't know what to do. Gee, 
 I've heard you have to balance a tea-cup and a sand- 
 wich and a hunk o' cake and a lot of conversation 
 all at once! I'd spill the tea, and drop crumbs, and 
 probably have the butler set on me." 
 
 " You will not! And if you did — can't you see? — 
 it wouldn't matter ! It just wouldn't matter ! " 
 
 " Honestly ? Claire dear, do you know why I came 
 on this trip? In Schoenstrom, I heard you say you 
 were going to Seattle. That moment, I decided I 
 would, too, and get acquainted with you, if murder 
 would do it. But, oh, I'm clumsy." 
 
 " You've seen me clumsy, in driving. You taught 
 me to get over it. Perhaps I can teach you some 
 things. And we'll study — together — evenings ! I'm a 
 thoroughly ignorant parasite woman. Make me be- 
 come real ! A real woman ! " 
 
 " Dear-^ear " 
 
 Mr. Boltwood loomed on them. " The train 's com- 
 ing, at last. We'll have a decent sleep for once, at 
 the Gilsons'. I've wired them to meet us." He de- 
 parted. 
 
 " Terribly glad your father keeps coming down on 
 
240 FREE AIR 
 
 us, because it scares me so I get desperate," said Milt. 
 " Golly, I think I can hear the train. I, uh, Claire, 
 Claire dear " 
 
 " Milt, are you proposing to me ? Please hurry, 
 because that is the train. Isn't it absurd — some day 
 you'll have to propose all over again formally, for the 
 benefit of people like father, when you and I already 
 know we're partners! We've done things together, 
 not just danced together! When you're an engineer, 
 you'll call me, and I'll come a-running up to Alaska. 
 And sometimes you'll come with me to Brooklyn — 
 
 we'll be a couple of bombs There's the train. 
 
 Oh, playmate, hurry with your engineering course! 
 Hurry, hurry, hurry! Because when it's done, 
 
 then Whither thou goest, there I go also ! And 
 
 you did bully me, you did, you did, and I like it, 
 and Yes, father, the bags are right here. Tele- 
 phone me, minute you reach Seattle, dear, and we'll 
 
 have a private lesson in balancing tea-cups Yes, 
 
 father, I have the tickets. So glad, dear, the trip 
 smashed up like this — shocked me into reality — ^made 
 me realize I've been with you every hour since I dis- 
 missed you, back in Dakota, and you looked at me, big 
 hurt eyes, like a child, and Yes, father, Pull- 
 man's at the back. Yes, I'm coming! " 
 
 " W-wait ! D-did you know I was going to 
 propose ? " 
 
 " Yes. Ever since the Yellowstone. Been trying to 
 
FREE AIR 241 
 
 think of a nice way to refuse you. But there isn't 
 any. You're like Pinky — can't get rid of you — 
 have t' adopt you. Besides, I've found out " 
 
 "You love me?" 
 
 "I don't know! How can I tell? But I do like 
 
 to drive with my head on your shoulder and 
 
 Yesssss, father, coming!" 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 HER OWN PEOPLE 
 
 MR. HENRY B. BOLTWOOD was decorously 
 asleep in a chair in the observation car, and 
 Claire, on the wide back platform, sat unmoving, ap- 
 parently devoted to agriculture and mountain scenery. 
 But it might have been noted that her hand clenched 
 one of the wooden supports of her camp-stool, and 
 that her hunched back did not move. 
 
 When she had turned to follow her father into the 
 train, Milt had caught her shoulders and kissed her. 
 
 For half an hour that kiss had remained, a percep- 
 tible warm pressure on her lips. And for half an hour 
 she had felt the relief of gliding through the moun- 
 tains without the strain of piloting, the comfort of 
 having the unseen, mysterious engineer up ahead 
 automatically drive for her. She had caroled to her 
 father about nearing the Pacific. Her nervousness 
 had expressed itself in jerky gaiety. 
 
 But when he had sneaked away for a nap, and 
 Claire could no longer hide from herself by a veil of 
 chatter the big decision she had made on the station 
 platform, then she was lonely and frightened — and 
 very anxious to undecide the decision. She could not 
 think clearly. She could see Milt Daggett only as a 
 
 24a 
 
FREE AIR 243 
 
 solemn young man in an inferior sweater, standing by 
 the track in a melancholy autumnal light, waving to 
 her as the train pulled out, disappearing in a dun 
 obscurity, less significant than the station, the reced- 
 ing ties, or the porter who was, in places known only 
 to his secretive self, concealing her baggage. 
 
 She could only mutter in growing panic, " I'm crazy. 
 In-sane ! Pledging myself to this boy before I know 
 how he will turn out. Will he learn anything besides 
 engineering? I know it — I do want to stroke his 
 
 cheek and — his kiss frightened me, but Will I 
 
 hate him when I see him with nice people? Can I 
 introduce him to the Gilsons? Oh, I was mad; so 
 wrought up by that idiotic chase with Dlorus, and so 
 
 sure I was a romantic heroine and And I'm 
 
 simply an indecisive girl in a realistic muddle!" 
 
 Threatened by darkness and the sinister evening 
 chill of the mountains, with the train no longer cheer- 
 fully climbing the rocky ridge but rumbling and snort- 
 ing in the defiles, and startling her with agitating for- 
 ward leaps as though the brakes had let go, she could 
 not endure the bleak platform, and even less could she 
 endure sitting in the chair car, eyed by the smug 
 tourists — ^people as empty of her romance as they 
 were incapable of her sharp tragedy. She balanced 
 forward to the vestibule. She stood in that cold, 
 swaying, darkling place that was filled with the smell 
 of rubber and metal and grease and the thunderous 
 
244 FREE AIR 
 
 dash of steel on steel; she tried to look out into the 
 fleeing darkness; she tried to imagine that the train 
 was carrying her away from the pursuing enemy — 
 from her own weak self. 
 
 Her father came puffing and lip-pursing and jolly, 
 to take her to dinner. Mr. Boltwood had no tearing 
 meditations; he had a healthy interest in soup. But 
 he glanced at her, across the bright, sleek dining-table; 
 he seemed to study her; and suddenly Claire saw that 
 he was a very wise man. His look hinted, " You're 
 worried, my dear," but his voice ventured nothing 
 beyond comfortable drawling stories to which she had 
 only, from the depth of her gloomy brooding, to nod 
 mechanically. 
 
 She got a great deal of satisfaction and 
 horror out of watching two traveling-men after 
 dinner. Milt had praised the race, and one of 
 the two traveling-men, a slender, clear-faced 
 youngster, was rather like Milt, despite plastered hair, 
 a watch-chain slung diagonally across his waistcoat, 
 maroon silk socks, and shoes of pearl buttons, gray 
 tops, and patent-leather bottoms. The other man was 
 a butter-ball. Both of them had harshly pompous 
 voices — the proudly unlettered voices of the smoking 
 compartment. The slender man was roaring: 
 
 " Yes, sir, he's got a great proposition there — ^be- 
 lieve me, he's got a great proposition — ^he's got one 
 great little factory there, take it from me. He can 
 
FREE AIR 245 
 
 turn out toothpicks to compete with Michigan. He's 
 simply piling up the shekels — why say, he's got a house 
 with eighteen rooms — every room done different." 
 
 Claire wondered whether Milt, when the sting and 
 faith of romance were blunted, would engage in Great 
 Propositions, and light for the recognition of his — 
 toothpicks. Would his creations be favorites in the 
 best lunch rooms? Would he pile up shekels? 
 
 Then her fretting was lost in the excitement of ap- 
 proaching Seattle and their host — Claire's cousin, 
 Eugene Gilson, an outrageously prosperous owner of 
 shingle-mills. He came from an old Brooklyn Heights 
 family. He had married Eva Gontz of Englewood. 
 He liked music and wrote jokey little letters and 
 knew the addresses of all the best New York shops. 
 He was of Her Own People, and she was near now to 
 the security of his friendship, the long journey done. 
 
 Lights thicker and thicker — a factory illuminated 
 by arc-lamps, — the baggage — the porter — the eager 
 trail of people in the aisle — climbing down to the plat- 
 form — red caps — ^passing the puffing engine which had 
 brought them in — the procession to the gate — faces 
 behind a grill — Eugene Gilson and Eva waving — 
 kisses, cries of " How was the trip?" and " Oh! Had 
 won-derful drive ! " — the huge station, and curious 
 waiting passengers, Jap coolies in a gang, lumbermen 
 in corks — the Gilsons' quiet car, and baggage stowed 
 away by the chauffeur instead of by their own tired 
 
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 hands — streets strangely silent after the tumult of the 
 train — Seattle and the sunset coast at last attained. 
 
 Claire had forgotten how many charming, most 
 desirable things there were in the world. The Gilsons 
 drove up Queen Anne Hill to a bay-fronting house 
 on a breezy knob — a Georgian house of holly hedge, 
 French windows, a terrace that suggested tea, and a 
 great hall of mahogany and white enamel with the hint 
 of roses somewhere, and a fire kindled in the paneled 
 drawing-room, to be seen beyond the hall. Warmth 
 and softness and the Gilsons' confident affection 
 wrapped her around; and in contented weariness she 
 mounted to a bedroom of Bakst sketches, a four- 
 poster, and a bedside table with a black and orange 
 electric lamp and a collection of Arthur Symons' es- 
 says. 
 
 She sank by the bed, pitifully rubbed her cheek 
 against the silk comforter that was primly awaiting her 
 commands at the foot of the bed, and cried, " Oh, 
 four-posters are necessary ! I can't give them up! 
 
 I won't! They No one has a right to ask me." 
 
 She mentally stamped her foot. " I simply won't live 
 in a shack and take in washing. It isn't worth it." 
 
 A bath, faintly scented, in a built-in tub in her own 
 marble bathroom. A preposterously and delightfully 
 enormous Turkish towel. One of Eva Gilson's foamy 
 negligees. Slow exquisite dressing — not the scratchy 
 hopping over ingrown dirt, among ingrown smells, of 
 
FREE AIR 247 
 
 a filthy small-hotel bedroom, but luxurious wandering 
 over rugs velvety to her bare feet. A languid inspec- 
 tion of the frivolous colors and curves in the drawings 
 by Bakst and George Plank and Helen Dryden. A 
 glance at the richness of the toilet-table, at the velvet 
 curtains that shut out the common world. 
 
 Expanding to the comfort as an orchid to cloying 
 tropic airs, she drew on her sheerest chemise, her most 
 frivolous silk stockings. In a dreaming enervated joy 
 she saw how smooth were her arms and legs; she 
 sleepily resented the redness of her wrists and the cal- 
 louses of the texture of corduroy that scored her palms 
 from holding the steering wheel. 
 
 Yes, she was glad that she had made the experi- 
 ment — ^but gladder that she was safely in from the 
 long dust-whitened way, back in her own world of 
 beauty; and she couldn't imagine ever trying it again. 
 To think of clumping out into that world of deliberate 
 and brawling crudeness 
 
 Of one Milt Daggett she didn't think at all. 
 
 Georgeously sleepy — and gorgeously certain that by 
 and by she would go, not to a stingy hotel bed, with 
 hound-dog ribs to cut into her tired back, but to a 
 feathery softness of slumber — she wavered down to 
 the drawing-room, and on the davenport, by the fire, 
 with Victoria chocolates by her elbow, and pillows 
 behind her shoulders, she gossiped of her adventure, 
 and asked for news of friends and kin back East. 
 
248 FREE AIR 
 
 Eugene and Eva Gilson asked with pyrotechnic mer- 
 riness about the " funny people she must have met 
 along the road." With a subdued, hidden unhappi- 
 ness, Claire found that she could not mention Milt — 
 that she was afraid her father would mention Milt — 
 to these people who took it for granted that all persons 
 who did not live in large houses and play good games 
 of bridge were either "queer" or "common"; who 
 believed that their West was desirable in proportion 
 as it became like the East; and that they, though 
 Westerners, were as superior to workmen with hard 
 hands as was Brooklyn Heights itself. 
 
 Claire tried to wriggle out from under the thought 
 of Milt while, with the Gilsons as the perfect audience, 
 she improvised on the theme of wandering. With 
 certain unintended exaggerations, and certain not 
 quite accurate groupings of events, she described the 
 farmers and cowpunchers, the incredible hotels and 
 garages. Indeed they had become incredible to her 
 own self. Obviously this silken girl couldn't possibly 
 take seriously a Dlorus Kloh — or a young garage man 
 who said " ain't." 
 
 Eva Gilson had been in Brooklyn within the month, 
 and in a passion of remembrance of home, Claire cried, 
 " Oh, do tell me about everybody." 
 
 " I had such a good time with Amy Dorrance," said 
 Mrs. Gilson. " Of course Amy is a litde dull, but she's 
 such an awfully good sort and We did have the 
 
FREE AIR 249 
 
 jolliest party one afternoon. We went to lunch at 
 the Ritz, and a matinee, and we saw such an interest- 
 ing man — Gene is frightfully jealous when I rave 
 about him — I'm sure he was a violinist — simply an 
 exquisite thing he was — I wanted to kiss him. Gene 
 will now say, 'Why didn't you?'" 
 
 And Gene said, "Well, why didn't you?" and 
 Claire laughed, and her toes felt warm and pink and 
 good, and she was perfectly happy, and she murmured, 
 " It would be good to hear a decent violinist again. 
 Oh! What had George Worlicht been doing, when 
 you were home? " 
 
 " Don't you think Georgie is wonderful ? " flut- 
 tered Mrs. Gilson. " He makes me rue my thirty-six 
 sad years. I think I'll adopt him. You know, he al- 
 most won the tennis cup at Long Branch." 
 
 Georgie had a little mustache and an income, just 
 enough income to support the little mustache, and he 
 sang inoffensively, and was always winning tennis cups 
 — almost — and he always said, at least once at every 
 party, " The basis of savoir faire is knowing how to 
 be rude to the right people." Fire-enamored and glid- 
 ing into a perfumed haze of exquisite drowsiness, 
 Claire saw Georgie as heroic and wise. But the fire- 
 light got into her eyes, and her lids wouldn't stay open, 
 and in her ears was a soft humming as of a million 
 bees in a distant meadow golden-spangled — and Gene 
 was helping her upstairs; sleepiness submerged her like 
 
250 FREE AIR 
 
 bathing in sweet waters; she fumbled at buttons and 
 hooks and stays, let things lie where they fell — and 
 of all that luxury nothing was more pleasant than the 
 knowledge that she did not have to take precautions 
 against the rats, mice, cockroaches, and all their ob- 
 scene little brothers which — on some far-off fantastic 
 voyaging when she had been young and foolish — she 
 seemed to remember having found in her own room. 
 Then she was sinking into a bed like a tide of rain- 
 bow-colored foam, sinking deep, deep, deep 
 
 And it was morning, and she perceived that the 
 purpose of morning light was to pick out surfaces of 
 mahogany and orange velvet and glass, and that only 
 an idiot would ever leave this place and go about 
 begging dirty garage men to fill her car with stinking 
 gasoline and oil. 
 
 The children were at breakfast — children surely not 
 ,of the same species as the smeary-cheeked brats she 
 had seen tumbling by roadsides along the way — 
 sturdy Mason, with his cap of curls, and Virginia, 
 with bobbed ash-blond hair prim about her delicate 
 face. They curtsied, and in voices that actually had 
 intonations they besought her, " Oh, Cousin Claire, 
 would you pleasssssse tell us about drive-to-the- 
 coast?" 
 
 After breakfast, she went out on the terrace for the 
 View. 
 
 In Seattle, even millionaires, and the I. W. W., and 
 
FREE AIR 251 
 
 men with red garters on their exposed shirt-sleeves 
 who want to give you real estate, all talk about the 
 View. The View is to Seattle what the car-service, 
 the auditorium, the flivver-factory, or the price of coal 
 is to other cities. At parties in Seattle, you discuss the 
 question of whether the View of Lake Union or the 
 View of the Olympics is the better, and polite office- 
 managers say to their stenographers as they enter, 
 " How'si your View this morning?" All real-estate 
 deeds include a patent on the View, and every native 
 son has it as his soundest belief that no one in Tacoma 
 gets a View of Mount Rainier. 
 
 Mrs. Gilson informed Claire that they had the finest 
 View in Seattle. 
 
 Below Claire was the harbor, with docks thrust far 
 out into the water, and steamers alive with smoke. 
 Mrs. Gilson said they were Blue Funnel Liners, load- 
 ing for Vladivostok and Japan. The names, just the 
 names, shot into Claire's heart a wistful unexpressed 
 desire that was somehow vaguely connected with a 
 Milt Dagget who, back in the Middlewestern mud and 
 rain, had longed for purple mountains and cherry blos- 
 soms and the sea. But she cast out the wish, and lifted 
 her eyes to mountains across the sound — not purple 
 mountains, but sheer silver streaked with black, like 
 frozen surf on a desolate northern shore — the 
 Olympics, two-score miles away. 
 
 Up there, one could camp, with a boy in a de- 
 
252 FREE AIR 
 
 teriorated sweater singing as he watched the coflfee ^ 
 
 Hastily she looked to the left, across the city, with 
 its bright new skyscrapers, its shining cornices and 
 masses of ranked windows, and the exclamation-point 
 of the " tallest building outside of New York " — far 
 livelier than her own rusty Brooklyn. Beyond the 
 city was a dun cloud, but as she stared, far up in the 
 cloud something crept out of the vapor, and hung there 
 like a dull full moon, aloof, majestic, overwhelming, 
 and she realized that she was beholding the peak of 
 Mount Rainier, with the city at its foot like white 
 quartz pebbles at the base of a tower. 
 
 A landing-stage for angels, she reflected. 
 
 It did seem larger than dressing-tables and velvet 
 hangings and scented baths. 
 
 But she dragged herself from the enticing path 
 of that thought, and sighed wretchedly, " Oh, yes, he 
 would appreciate Rainier, but how — ^how would he 
 manage a grape-fruit? I mustn't be a fool! I 
 mustn't ! " She saw that Mrs. Gilson was peeping at 
 her, and she made herself say adequate things about 
 the View before she fled inside — fled from her sput- 
 tering inquiring self. 
 
 In the afternoon they drove to Capitol Hill; they 
 dropped in at various pretty houses and met the sort 
 of people Claire knew back home. Between people 
 they had Views; and the sensible Miss Boltwood, 
 making a philosophic discovery, announced to herself, 
 
FREE AIR 253 
 
 " After all, I've seen just as much from this limousine 
 as I would from a bone-breaking Teal bug. Silly to 
 make yourself miserable to see things. Oh yes, I will 
 go wandering some more, but not like a hobo. 
 
 But What can I say to him? Good heavens, 
 
 he may be here any time now, with our car. Oh, why 
 — ^why — why was I insane on that station platform? " 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE 
 
 SNOQUALMIE PASS lies among mountains 
 prickly with rocks and burnt stumps, but the 
 road is velvet, with broad saucer curves; and to Milt 
 it was pure beauty, it was release from life, to soar 
 up coaxing inclines and slip down easy grades in the 
 powerful car. " No more Teals for me," he cried, 
 in the ecstasy of handling an engine that slowed to a 
 demure whisper, then, at a touch of the accelerator, 
 floated up a rise, effortless, joyous, humming the boom- 
 ing song of the joy in speed. He suddenly hated the 
 bucking tediousness of the Teal. The Gomez-Dep 
 symbolized his own new life. 
 
 So he came to Lake Washington, and just across it 
 was the city of his long dreams, the city of the Pacific 
 — and of Claire. There was no ferry in sight, and he 
 rounded the lake, struck a brick pavement, rolled 
 through rough woods, suburban villas, and petty 
 business streets, to a region of factories and mills, with 
 the funnels of ships beyond. 
 
 And every minute he drove more slowly and be- 
 came more uneasy. 
 
 The pavement — the miles of it; the ruthless lumber- 
 mills, with their thousands of workmen quite like 
 
 254 
 
FREE AIR 255 
 
 himself; the agitation of realizing that every three 
 minutes he was passing a settlement larger than 
 Schoenstrom; the strangeness of ships and all the 
 cynical ways of the sea — the whole scene depressed 
 him as he perceived how little of the world he knew, 
 and how big and contemptuous of Milt Daggetts that 
 world must be. 
 
 " Huh ! " he growled. " Quite some folks living 
 here. Don't suppose they spend such a -wjhale of a lot 
 of time thinking about Milt Daggett and Bill McGol- 
 wey and Prof Jones. I guess most of these people 
 wouldn't think Heinie Rauskukle's store was so gosh- 
 awful big. I wasn't scared of Minneapolis — much 
 — ^but there they didn't ring in mountains and an 
 ocean on you. And I didn't have to go up on the 
 hill and meet folks like Claire's relations, and figure 
 out whether you shake hands catch-as-catch-can or 
 Corinthian. Look at that sawmill chimney — isn't it 
 nice of 'em to put the fly-screen over it so the flies 
 won't get down into the flames. No, they haven't got 
 much more than a million feet of lumber in that one 
 pile. And here's a bum little furniture store — it 
 wouldn't cost more 'n about ten times all I've got to 
 buy one of those Morris chairs. Oh Gooooooosh, 
 won't these houses ever stop? Say, that must be a 
 jitney. The driver snickered at me. Will the whole 
 town be onto me? Milt, you're a kind young fellow, 
 and you know what's the matter with Heinie's dif- 
 
256 FREE AIR 
 
 ferential, but they don't need you here. Quite a few 
 folks to carry on the business. Gosh, look at that 
 building ahead — nine stories ! " 
 
 He had planned to stop at a hotel, to wash up, and 
 to gallop to Claire. But — well — wouldn't it maybe 
 be better to leave the car at a public garage, so the 
 Boltwoods could get it when they wanted to? He'd 
 better " just kind of look around before he tackled the 
 watch-dog." 
 
 It was the public garage which finally crushed him. 
 It was a garage of enameled brick and colored tiles, 
 with a plate-glass-enclosed office in which worked 
 young men clad as the angels. One of them wore a 
 carnation. Milt noted. 
 
 "Huh! I'll write back and tell Ben Sittka that 
 hereafter he's to wear his best Sunday-go-to-meeting 
 clothes and a milk-weed blossom when he comes down 
 to work at the Red Trail Garage ! " 
 
 Milt drove up the brick incline into a room 
 thousands of miles long, with millions of new and 
 recently polished cars standing in lines as straight as a 
 running-board. He begged of a high-nosed colored 
 functionary — not in khaki overalls but in maroon 
 livery — " Where'll I put this boat?" 
 
 The Abyssinian prince gave him a check, and in a 
 tone of extreme lack of personal interest snapped, 
 " Take it down the aisle to the elevator." 
 
 Milt had followed the natural lines of traffic into 
 
FREE AIR 257 
 
 the city; he had spoken to no one; the prince's snort 
 was his welcome to Seattle. 
 
 Meekly he drove past the cars so ebon and silvery, 
 so smug and strong, that they would have regarded a 
 Teal bug as an insult. Another attendant waved him 
 into the elevator, and Milt tried not to look surprised 
 when the car started, not forward, but upward, as 
 though it had turned into an aeroplane. 
 
 When these adventures were over, when he had had 
 a shave and a shine, and washed his hands, and looked 
 into a department-store window that contained ten 
 billion yards of silk draped against polished satinwood,. 
 when he had felt unhappy over a movie theater large 
 enough to contain ten times the population of Schoen- 
 strom, and been cursed by a policeman for jaywalking, 
 and had passed a hotel entirely full of diplomats and 
 marble and caviare — then he could no longer put off 
 telephoning to Claire, and humbly, in a booth meant 
 for an umbrella-stand, he got the Eugene Gilson house, 
 and to a female who said " Yes ? " in a tone which 
 made it mean " No ! " he ventured, " May I speak to 
 Miss Boltwood?" 
 
 Miss Boltwood, it seemed, was out. 
 
 He was not sorry. He was relieved. He ducked out 
 of the telephone-booth with a sensation of escape. 
 
 Milt was in love with Claire; she was to him the 
 purpose of life; he thought of her deeply and tenderly 
 and longingly. All the way into Seattle he had 
 
258 FREE AIR 
 
 brooded about her; remembered her every word and 
 gesture; recalled the curve of her chin, and the fresh 
 feeling of her hands. But Claire had suddenly be- 
 come too big. In her were all these stores, these office 
 buildings for clever lawyers and surgeons, these con- 
 temptuous trolley cars, these careless people in beauti- 
 ful clothes. They were too much for him. Des- 
 perately he was pushing them back — back — fighting 
 for breath. And she belonged with them. 
 
 He mailed the check for the stored car to her, 
 with a note — written standing before a hacked wall- 
 desk in a branch post-office — which said only, " Here's 
 check for the boat. Did not know whether you would 
 have room for it at house. Tried to get you on phone, 
 phone again just as soon as rent room etc. hope hav- 
 ing happy time, M.D." 
 
 He went out to the university. On the trolley he 
 relaxed. But he did not exultantly feel that he had 
 won to the Pacific; he could not regard Seattle now 
 as a magic city, the Bagdad of modern caravans, with 
 Alaska and the Orient on one hand, the forests to the 
 north, and westward the spacious Inland Empire of 
 the wheat. He saw it as a place where you had to 
 work hard just to live; where busy policemen despised 
 you because you didn't know which trolley to take; 
 where it was incredibly hard to remember even the 
 names of the unceasing streets; where the conductors 
 said " Step lively ! " and there was no room to whistle, 
 
FREE AIR 259 
 
 no time to swap stories with a Bill McGolwey at an 
 Old Home lunch-counter. 
 
 He found the university ; he talked with the authori- 
 ties about entering the engineering school; the Y. M. 
 C. A. gave him a list of rooms; and, because it was 
 cheap, he chose a cubbyhole in a flat over a candy 
 store — a low room, which would probably keep out 
 the rain, but had no other virtues. It had one bed, one 
 table, one dissipated bureau, two straight bare chairs, 
 and one venerable lithograph depicting a girl with 
 ringlets shaking her irritating forefinger at a high- 
 church kitten. 
 
 The landlady consented to his importing an oil-stove 
 for cooking his meals. He bought the stove, with a 
 box of oatmeal, a jar of bacon, and half a dozen eggs. 
 He bought a plane and solid geometry, and an algebra. 
 At dinner time he laid the algebra beside his plate 
 of anemic bacon and leaking eggs. The eggs grew 
 cold. He did not stir. He was reviewing his high- 
 school algebra. He went down the pages, word by 
 word, steadily, quickly, absolutely concentrated — as 
 concentrated as he would recently have been in a new 
 problem of disordered transmission. Not once did 
 he stop to consider how glorious it would be to marry 
 Claire — or how terrifying it would be to marry Miss 
 Boltwood. 
 
 Three hours went by before he started up, be- 
 wildered, rubbed his eyes, picked at the chill bacon 
 
26o FREE AIR 
 
 and altogether disgusting eggs, and rambled out into 
 the street. 
 
 Again he risked the scorn of conductors and jitney- 
 drivers. He found Queen Anne Hill, found the resi- 
 dence of Mr. Eugene Gilson. He sneaked about it, 
 slipped into the gate, prowled toward the house. 
 Flabby from the intensity of study, he longed for the 
 stimulus of Claire's smile. But as he stared up at the 
 great squares of the clear windows, at the flare of 
 white columns in the porch-lights, that smile seemed 
 unreachable. He felt like a rustic at court. From the 
 shelter of the prickly holly hedge he watched the 
 house. It was "some kind of a party? — or what 
 would folks like these call a party ? " Limousines 
 were arriving; he had a glimpse of silken ankles, 
 frothy underskirts; heard easy laughter; saw people 
 moving through a big blue and silver room; caught 
 . a drifting tremor of music. 
 
 At last he saw Claire. She was dancing with a 
 young man as decorative as " that confounded Saxton 
 fellow" he had met at Flathead Lake, but younger 
 than Saxton, a laughing young man, with curly black 
 hair. For the first time in his life Milt wanted to kill. 
 He muttered, " Damn— damn— DAMN ! " as he saw 
 the young man carelessly embracing Claire. 
 
 His fingers tingling, his whole body yearning till 
 every cell seemed a beating hammer. Milt longed just 
 once to slip his hand about Claire's waist like that. 
 
FREE AIR 261 
 
 He could feel the satin of her bodice and its warmth. 
 
 Then it seemed to him, as Claire again passed the 
 window, that he did not know her at all. He had 
 once talked to a girl who resembled her, but that was 
 long ago. He could understand a Gomez-Dep and 
 appreciate a brisk sports-suit, but this girl was of a 
 world unintelligible to him. Her hair, in its dips and 
 convolutions, was altogether a puzzle. " How did 
 she ever fix it like that? " Her low evening dress — 
 "what was it made of — some white stuff, but was it 
 silk or muslin or what ? " Her shoulders were startling 
 in their bare powdery smoothness — " how dare that 
 young pup dance with her?" And her face, that had 
 seemed so jolly and friendly, floated past the window 
 as pale and illusive as a wisp of fog. His longing for 
 her passed into clumsy awe. He remembered, without 
 resentment, that once on a hilltop in Dakota she had 
 coldly forbidden him to follow her. 
 
 With all the pleasure of martyrdom — to make quite 
 sure that he should realize how complete a fool he had 
 been to intrude on Miss Boltwood — he studied the 
 other guests. He gave them, perhaps, a glory they did 
 not have. There were girls sleek as ivory. There 
 was a lean stooped man, very distinguished. There 
 was a bulky man in a dinner coat, with a semi-circle 
 of mustache, and eyes that even at a distance seemed 
 to give impatient orders. He would be a big banker, 
 or a lumberman. 
 
262 FREE AIR 
 
 It was the easy friendliness of all of them that most 
 made Milt feel like an outsider. If a servant had 
 come out and ordered him away, he would have gone 
 meekly ... he fancied. 
 
 He straggled off, too solidly unhappy to think how 
 unhappy he was. In his clammy room he picked up 
 the algebra. For a quarter-hour he could not gather 
 enough vigor to open it. In his lassitude, his elbows 
 felt feeble, his fingers were ready to drop off. He 
 slowly scratched the book open 
 
 At one o'clock he was reading algebra, his face 
 still and grim. But already it seemed less heartily 
 brick-red. 
 
 He listlessly telephoned to Claire, in the morning. 
 
 "Hello? Oh! MissBoltwood? This is Milt Dag- 
 gett." 
 
 "Oh! Oh, how are you?" 
 
 " Why, why I'm — I've got settled. I can get into 
 the engineering school all right." 
 
 " I'm glad." 
 
 "Uh, enjoying Seattle?" 
 
 "Oh! Oh yes. The mountains Do you like 
 
 it?" 
 
 " Oh ! Oh yes. Sea and all Great town." 
 
 " Uh, w-when are we going to see you ? Daddy 
 had to go East, left you his regards. W-when ?" 
 
 " Why — why I suppose you're awful — awfully busy, 
 meeting people and all " 
 
FREE AIR 263 
 
 "Yes, I am, rather, but " Her hedging un- 
 comfortable tone changed to a cry of distress. 
 " Milt! I must see you. Come up at four this after- 
 noon." 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 He rushed to a small, hot tailor-shop. He panted 
 " Press m' Suit while I wait ? " They gave him a 
 pair of temporary trousers, an undesirable pair of 
 trousers belonging to a short fat man with no taste 
 in fabrics, and with these flapping about his lean legs, 
 he sat behind a calico curtain, reading The War Cry 
 and looking at a " fashion-plate " depicting nine gentle- 
 men yachtsmen each nine feet tall, while the Jugoslav 
 in charge unfeelingly sprinkled and ironed and patted 
 his suit. 
 
 He spent ten minutes in blacking his shoes, in his 
 room — and twenty minutes in getting the blacking off 
 his fingers. 
 
 He was walking through the gate in the Gilson hedge 
 at one minute to four. 
 
 But he had reached Queen Anne Hill at three. For 
 an hour he had walked the crest road, staring at the 
 steamers below, alternately gripping his hands with 
 desire of Claire, and timorously finally deciding that 
 he wouldn't go to her house — wouldn't ever see her 
 again. 
 
 He came into the hall tremblingly expecting some 
 great thing, some rending scene, and she met him with 
 
264 FREE AIR 
 
 a cool, " Oh, this is nice. Eva had some little white 
 cakes made for us." He felt like a man who has asked 
 for a drink of cold charged water and found it warm 
 and flat. 
 
 " How Dandy house," he muttered, limply 
 
 shaking her limp hand. 
 
 " Yes, isn't it a darling. They do themselves aw- 
 fully well here. I'm afraid your bluff, plain, demo- 
 cratic Westerners are a fraud. I hear a lot more about 
 ' society ' here than I ever did in the East. The 
 sets seem frightfully complicated." She was drifting 
 into the drawing-room, to a tapestry stool, and Milt 
 was awkwardly stalking a large wing chair, while she 
 fidgeted : 
 
 " Everybody tells me about how one poor dear 
 soul, a charming lady who used to take in washing 
 or salt gold-mines or something, and she came here 
 a little while ago with billions and billions of 
 dollars, and tried to buy her way in by shopping 
 for all the charities in town, and apparently she's 
 just as out of it here as she would be in Lon- 
 don. You and I aren't exclusive like that, are 
 we!" 
 
 Somehow 
 
 Her " you and I " was too kindly, as though she was 
 trying to put him at ease, as though she knew he 
 couldn't possibly be at ease. With a horribly elaborate 
 politeness, with a smile that felt hot on his twitching 
 
FREE AIR 26s 
 
 cheeks, he murmured, " Oh no. No, we No, I 
 
 guess " 
 
 If he knew what it was he guessed, he couldn't get 
 it out. While he was trying to find out what had be- 
 come of all the things there were to say in the world, 
 a maid came in with an astonishing object — a small, 
 red, shelved table on wheels, laden with silver vessels, 
 and cake, and sandwiches that were amazingly small 
 and thin. 
 
 The maid was so starched that she creaked. She 
 
 glanced at Milt Claire didn't make him so 
 
 nervous that he thought of his clothes, but the maid 
 did. He was certain that she knew that he had blacked 
 his own shoes, knew how old were his clothes. He 
 was urging himself, "Must get new suit tomorrow — 
 ready-made — mustn't forget, now — be sure — get suit 
 tomorrow." He wanted to apologize to the maid for 
 existing. . . . He wouldn't dare to fall in love with 
 the maid. . . . And he'd kill the man who said he 
 could be fool enough to fall in love with Miss Bolt- 
 wood. 
 
 He sipped his tea, and dropped sandwich crumbs, 
 and ached, and panted, and peeped at the crushing 
 quantities of pictures and sconces and tables and 
 chairs in the room, and wondered what they did with 
 all of them, while Claire chattered: 
 
 " Yes, we weren't exclusive out on the road. Didn't 
 we meet funny people though! Oh, somehow that 
 
266 FREE AIR 
 
 ' funny people ' sounds familiar. But What fun 
 
 that morning was at — Pellago, was it? Heavens, I'm 
 forgetting those beastly little towns already — that 
 place where we hazed the poor landlady who over- 
 charged me." 
 
 " Yes." He was thinking of how much Claire 
 would forget, now. " Yes. We certainly fixed her, 
 all right. Uh — did you get the storage check for your 
 car?" 
 
 " Oh yes, thank you. So nice of you to bother 
 with it." 
 
 " Oh, nothing at all, nothing Nothing at all. 
 
 Uh Do you like Seattle? " 
 
 " Oh yes. Such views — the mountains Do you 
 
 like it?" 
 
 " Oh yes. Always wanted to see the sea." 
 
 " Yes, and Such a well-built town." 
 
 "Yes, and They must do a lot of business 
 
 here." 
 
 " Yes, they Oh yes, I do like Seat " 
 
 He had darted from his chair, brushed by the tea- 
 wagon, ignoring its rattle and the perilous tipping of 
 cups. He put his hand on her shoulder, snorted, 
 " Look here. We're both sparring for time. Stop 
 it. It's — it's all right, Claire. I want you to like 
 me, but I'm not — I'm not like that woman you were 
 telling about that's trying to butt in. I know, Lord I 
 know so well what you're thinking! You're thinking 
 
FREE AIR 267 
 
 I'm not up to the people you've been seeing last couple 
 
 of days — not up to 'em yet, anyway. Well We'll 
 
 be good friends." 
 
 Fearless, now, his awe gone in tenderness, he lifted 
 her chin, looked straight into her eyes, smiled. But 
 his courage was slipping. He wanted to run and 
 hide. 
 
 He turned abruptly, grumbling, " Well, better get 
 back to work now, I guess." 
 
 Her cry was hungry : " Oh, please don't go." She 
 was beside him, shyly picking at his sleeve. " I know 
 what you mean. I like you for being so understand- 
 ing. But I do like you. You were the perfect 
 
 <:ompanion. Let's Oh, let's have a walk — and 
 
 try to laugh again." 
 
 He definitely did not want to stay. At this moment 
 he did not love her. He regarded her as an estimable 
 young woman who, for a person so idiotically reared, 
 had really shown a good deal of pluck out on the road 
 — where he wanted to be. He stood in the hall dis- 
 liking his old cap while she ran up to put on a top 
 coat. 
 
 Mute, casual, they tramped out of the house to- 
 gether, and down the hill to a region of shabby old 
 brown houses like blisters on the hillside. They had 
 little to say, and that little was a polite reminiscence 
 ■of incidents in which neither was interested. 
 
 When they came back to the Gilson hedge, he 
 
268 FREE AIR 
 
 stopped at the gate, with terrific respectableness re- 
 moved his cap. 
 
 " Good night," she said cheerily. " Call me up soon 
 again." 
 
 He did not answer " Good night." He said " Good- 
 by"; and he meant it to be his last farewell. He 
 caught her hand, hastily dropped it, fled down the hill. 
 
 He was, he told himself, going to leave Seattle that 
 evening. 
 
 That, doubtless, is the reason why he ran to a 
 trolley, to get to a department-store before it closed; 
 and why, precipitating himself upon a startled clerk, 
 he purchased a new suit of chaste blue serge, a new 
 pair of tan boots (curiously like some he had seen on 
 the university campus that morning) and a new hat 
 so gray and conservative and felty that it might have 
 been worn by Woodrow Wilson. 
 
 He spent the evening in reading algebra and geome- 
 try, and in telling himself that he was beautifully not 
 thinking about Claire. 
 
 In the midst of it, he caught himself at it, and 
 laughed. 
 
 " What you're doing, my friend, is pretending you 
 don't like Claire, so that you can hide from your fool 
 self the fact that you're going to sneak back to see 
 her the first chance you get — first time the watch-dog 
 is out. Seriously now, son, Claire is impossible for 
 you. No can do. Now that you've been chump 
 
FREE AIR 269 
 
 enough to leave home Oh Lord, I wish I hadn't 
 
 promised to take this room for all winter. Wish I 
 hadn't matriculated at the U. But I'm here now, and 
 I'll stick it out. I'll stay here one year anyway, and 
 
 go back home. Oh! And to By Golly! She 
 
 liked me!" 
 
 He was thinking of the wild-rose teacher to whom 
 he had given a lift back in Dakota. He was remem- 
 bering her daintiness, her admiration. 
 
 " Now there's somebody who'd make me keep climb- 
 ing, but wouldn't think I was a poor hick. If I were 
 to drive back next spring, I could find her " 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 A CLASS IN ENGINEERING AND OMELETS 
 
 THE one thing of whith Milt Daggett was certain 
 was that now he had managed to crawl into the 
 engineering school, he must g?t his degree in mechani- 
 cal engineering. He was older than most of his class- 
 mates. He must hurry. He must do four years' 
 work in two. 
 
 There has never been a Freshman, not the most gog~ 
 gle-eyed and earnest of them, who has seen less of 
 classmates, thought less about " outside activities," 
 more grimly centered the universe about his work. 
 
 Milt had sold his garage, by mail, to Ben Sittka 
 and Heinie Rauskukle. He had enough money to get 
 through two years, with economy. His life was as 
 simple and dull as it had been in Schoenstrom. He 
 studied while he cooked his scrappy meals ; he pinned 
 mathematical formulas and mechanical diagrams on 
 the wall, and pored over them while he was dressing 
 — or while he was trying to break in the new shoes, 
 which were beautiful, squeaky, and confoundedly 
 tight. 
 
 He was taking French and English and " composi- 
 tion-writing " in addition to engineering, and he made 
 out a schedule of life as humorlessly as a girl grind 
 
 870 
 
FREE AIR 271 
 
 who intends to be a Latin teacher. When he was 
 not at work, or furiously running and yanking chest- 
 weights in the gymnasium, he was attending concerts, 
 lectures. 
 
 Studying the life about him, he had discovered that 
 the best way to save time was to avoid the lazy friend- 
 ships of college; the pipe-smoking, yawning, com- 
 fortable, rather heavy, altogether pleasant wondering 
 about "what'll we do next?" which occupies at least 
 four hours a day for the average man in college. He 
 would have liked it, as he had liked long talks about 
 nothing with Bill McGolwey at the Old Home Lunch. 
 But he couldn't afiFord it. He had to be ready to 
 
 That was the point at which his reflections always 
 came up with a jolt. He was quite clear about the 
 method of getting ready, but he hadn't the slightest 
 idea of what he was getting ready for. The moment 
 he had redecided to marry Claire, he saw that his only 
 possible future would be celibate machinery-installing 
 in Alaska; and the moment he was content with the 
 prospect of an engineer's camp in Alaskan wilds, his 
 thoughts went crazily fluttering after Claire. 
 
 Despite his aloofness. Milt was not unpopular in 
 his class. The engineers had few of them the interest 
 in dances, athletics, college journalism, which dis- 
 tinguished the men in the academic course. They 
 were older, and more conscious of a living to earn. 
 And Milt's cheerful, " How's the boy ? " hir manner 
 
272 FREE AIR 
 
 of waving his hand — as though to a good customer 
 leaving the Red Trail Garage with the generator at 
 last tamed — indicated that he was a "good fellow." 
 
 One group of collegians Milt did seek. It is true 
 that he had been genuine in scorning social climbers. 
 But it is also true that the men whom he sought to 
 know were the university smart set. Their satisfac- 
 tion in his allegiance would have been lessened, how- 
 ever, had they known how little he cared for what 
 they thought of him, and with what cruel directness 
 he was using them as models for the one purpose of 
 pleasing Miss Claire Boltwood. 
 
 The American state universities admit, in a pleased 
 way, that though Yale and Harvard and Princeton 
 may be snobbish, the state universities are the refuge 
 of a myth called " college democracy." But there is no 
 university near a considerable city into which the in- 
 heritors of the wealth of that city do not carry all 
 the local social distinctions. Their family rank, their 
 place in the unwritten peerage, determines to which 
 fraternity they shall be elected, and the fraternity de- 
 termines with whom — men and girls — they shall be 
 intimate. The sons and daughters of Seattle and 
 Tacoma, the scions of old families running in an 
 unbroken line clear back to 1880, were amiable to poor 
 outsiders from the Yakima valley and the new claims 
 of Idaho, but they did not often invite them to their 
 homes on the two hills and the Boulevard. 
 
FREE AIR 273 
 
 Yet it was these plutocrats whom Milt followed; 
 they whose boots and table manners, cigarettes and 
 lack of interest in theology, he studied. He met them 
 in his English class. He remarked " Hello, Smith," 
 and " Mornin', Jones," as though he liked them but 
 didn't care a hang whether they liked him. And by 
 and by he drifted into their fraternity dwelling-house, 
 with a question about the next day's assignment, and 
 met their friends. He sat pipe-smoking, silent, cheer- 
 ful, and they seemed to accept him. Whenever one of 
 them felt that Milt was intruding, and asked imperti- 
 nent questions in the manner of a Pullman porter at a 
 Darktown ball, Milt had a peculiar level look which 
 had been known to generate courtesy even in the off- 
 spring of a million dollars. They found that he knew 
 more about motor-cars than any of them, and as 
 motor-cars were among their greater gods, they 
 considered him wise. He was incomparably sim- 
 ple and unpretentious; they found his presence com- 
 fortable. 
 
 But there is a question as to what they would have 
 thought had they known that, lying awake in the 
 morning, Milt unsmilingly repeated : 
 
 " Hair always straight down at the back. Never 
 rounded. Nix on clippers over the ears. 
 
 " Matisse is a popular nut artist. Fashionable for 
 the swells to laugh at him, and the fellows on the 
 college papers to rave about him. 
 
274 FREE AIR 
 
 " Blinx and Severan the swellest — ^the smartest 
 haberdashery in the city. 
 
 " The one way to get in Dutch is to mention labor 
 leaders. 
 
 " Never say ' Pleased to meet you.' Just look about 
 halfway between bored and tol'able and say, ' How 
 do you do ? ' " 
 
 All these first three weeks of his life in Seattle, he 
 had seen Claire only on his first call. Twice he had 
 telephoned to her. On one of these high occasions she 
 had invited him to accompany the family to the 
 theater — which meant to the movies — and he had 
 wretchedly refused; the other time she had said that 
 she might stay in Seattle all winter, and she might go 
 any day, and they "must be sure to have that good 
 long walk " ; and he had said " oh yes," ten or twelve 
 unhappy times, and had felt very empty as he hung up 
 the receiver. 
 
 Then she wrote to invite him to late Sunday break- 
 fast at the Gilsons' — they made a function of it, and 
 called it bruncheon. The hour was given as ten- 
 thirty; most people came at noon; but Milt arrived 
 at ten-thirty-one, and found only a sleepy butler in 
 sight. 
 
 He waited in the drawing-room for five minutes, 
 feeling like a bill-collector. Into the room vaulted a 
 medium-sized, medium-looking, amiable man, Eugene 
 
FREE AIR 275 
 
 Gilson, babbling, " Oh, I say, so sorry to keep you 
 waiting, Mr. Daggett. Rotten shame, do come have 
 a bun or something, frightfully informal these 
 bruncheons, play auction?" 
 
 " Zallright— no," said Milt. 
 
 The host profusely led him to a dining-room where 
 — in English fashion, or something like English 
 fashion, or anyway a close approximation to the fic- 
 tional pictures of English fashion — kidneys and 
 sausages and omelets waited in dishes on the side- 
 board. Mr. Gilson poured coffee, and chanted : 
 
 " Do try the kidneys. They're usually very fair. 
 Miss Boltwood tells me that you were very good to 
 her on the trip. Must have been jolly trip. You going 
 to be in town some time, oh yes, Claire said you were 
 in the university, engineering, wasn't it ? have you ever 
 
 seen our lumber mills, do drop around some Try 
 
 the omelet before the beastly thing gets cold, do you 
 mind kicking that button, we'll have some more omelet 
 in — any time at the mill and I'll be glad to have 
 some one show you through, how did you find the 
 roads along the Red Trail? " 
 
 " Why, pretty fair," said Milt. 
 
 Into the room precipitated Mrs. Gilson, in a 
 smile, a super-sweater, and a sports skirt that would 
 have been soiled by any variety of sport more 
 violent than pinochle, and she was wailing as she 
 came: 
 
276 FREE AIR 
 
 "We're disgraced, Gene, is this Mr. Daggett? how 
 do you do, so good of you to come, do try the kidneys, 
 they're usually quite decent, are the omelets warm, you 
 might ring for some more. Gene, for heaven's sake give 
 me some coffee, Miss Boltwood will be right down, 
 Mr. Daggett, she told us how fortunate they were that 
 they met you on the road, did you like the trip, how 
 were the roads ? " 
 
 " Why, they were pretty good," said M^t. 
 
 Claire arrived, fresh and serene in white taffeta, 
 and she cried prettily, " I ought to have known that 
 you'd be prompt even if no one else in the world is, 
 so glad you came, have you tried the kidneys, and do 
 have an — oh, I see you have tried the omelets, how 
 goes the work at the university?" 
 
 "Why, fine," said Mi^t. 
 
 He ate stolidly, and looked pleased, and sneaked in 
 a glance at his new (and still tight and still squeaky) 
 tan boots to make sure that they were as well polished 
 as they had seemed at home. 
 
 From nowhere appeared a bustling weighty woman, 
 purring, " Hello, hello, hello, is it possible that you're 
 
 all up Mr. Daggett. Yes, do lead me to the 
 
 kidneys." 
 
 And a man with the gray hair of a grandfather 
 and the giggle of a cash-girl bounced in clamoring, 
 " Mornin' — expected to have bruncheon alone — do 
 we have some bridge? Oh, good morning, Mr. Dag- 
 
FREE AIR 277 
 
 gett, how do you like Seattle? Oh, thanks so much, 
 yes, just two." 
 
 Then Milt ceased to keep track of the conversation, 
 which bubbled over the omelets, and stewed over the 
 kidneys, and foamed about the coffee, and clashed 
 above a hastily erected bridge table, and altogether 
 sounded curiously like four cars with four quite dif- 
 ferent things the matter with them all being tried out 
 at once in a small garage. People flocked in, and 
 nodded as though they knew one another too well to 
 worry about it. They bowed to him charmingly, and 
 instantly forgot him for the kidneys and sausages. 
 He sat looking respectable and feeling lonely, by a cup 
 of coffee, till Claire — dropping the highly unreal smile 
 with which she had been listening to the elderly beau's 
 account of a fishing-trip he hadn't quite got around to 
 taking — slipped into a chair beside him and begged, 
 " Are they looking out for you. Milt ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, thank you." 
 
 " You haven't been to see me." 
 
 " Oh no, but Working so darn hard." 
 
 " What a strikingly original reason ! But have you 
 really?" 
 
 " Honest." 
 
 Suddenly he wanted — eternal man, forever playing 
 confidential small boy to the beloved — to tell her about 
 his classes and acquaintances; to get pity for his bare 
 room and his home-cooking. But round them blared 
 
278 FREE AIR 
 
 the brazen interest in kidneys, and as Claire glanced 
 up with much brightness at another arrival, Milt lost 
 momentum, and found that there was absolutely 
 nothing in the world he could say to her. 
 
 He made a grateful farewell to the omelets and 
 kidneys, and escaped. 
 
 He walked many miles that day, trying to remem- 
 ber how Claire looked. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 THE VICIOUSNESS OF NICE THINGS 
 
 "TTTHAT did you think of my nice Daggett 
 
 W boy?" Claire demanded of Eva Gilson, the 
 moment bruncheon was over. 
 
 " Which one was Oh, the boy you met on the 
 
 road? Why, really, I didn't notice him particularly. 
 I'd rather fancied from the way you referred to him 
 that he was awfully jolly and forceful, but rather 
 crude. But I didn't notice him at all. He seemed 
 perfectly well-bred, but slightly heavy." 
 
 " No, he isn't that He Why did you lead 
 
 spades ? " reflected Claire. 
 
 They were in the drawing-room, resting after the 
 tact and tumult of the bruncheon. Claire had been 
 here long enough now for the Gilsons to forget her 
 comfortably, and be affectionate and quarrelsome and 
 natural, and to admit by their worrying that even in 
 their exalted social position there were things to fuss 
 about. 
 
 "I do think we ought to have invited Belle Tor- 
 rens," fretted Mrs. Gilson. " We've simply got to 
 have her here soon." 
 
 Mr. Gilson speculated intensely, " But she's the 
 dullest soul on earth, and her husband spends all his 
 
 279 
 
28o FREE AIR 
 
 spare time in trying to think up ways of doing me dirt 
 in business. Oh, by the way, did you get the water 
 tap in the blue room fixed? It's dripping all the 
 time." 
 
 " No, I forgot it." 
 
 " Well, I do wish you'd have it attended to. It 
 simply drips all the time." 
 
 " I know. I intended to 'phone the plumber ■ 
 
 Can't you 'phone him tomorrow, from the office ? " 
 
 " No, I haven't time to bother with it. But I do 
 wish you would. It keeps on dripping " 
 
 " I know, it doesn't seem to stop. Well, you remind 
 me of it in the morning." 
 
 " I'm afraid I'll forget. You better make a note 
 of it. If it keeps on dripping that way, it's likely to 
 injure something. And I do wish you'd tell the Jap 
 not to put so much parsley in the omelet. And I say, 
 how would an omelet be with a butter sauce over it?" 
 
 " Oh, no, I don't think so. An omelet ought to be 
 nice and dry. Butter makes it so greasy — besides, 
 with the price of butter " 
 
 " But there's a richness to butter You'd better 
 
 make a note about the tap dripping in the blue room 
 right now, before you forget it. Oh! Why in 
 heaven's name did we have Johnny Martin here ? He's 
 dull as ditchwater " 
 
 " I know, but It is nice to go out to his place 
 
 on the Point. Oh, Gene, I do wish you'd try and 
 
FREE AIR 381 
 
 remember not to talk about your business so much. 
 You and Mr. Martin were talking about the price 
 of lumber for at least half an hour " 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. We scarcely mentioned it. 
 Oh! What car are you going to use this afternoon? 
 If we get out to the Barnetts', I thought we might use 
 the limousine Or no, you'll probably go out be- 
 fore I do, I have to read over some specifications, and 
 I promised to give Will a lift, couldn't you take the 
 Loco, maybe you might drive yourself, no, I forgot, 
 the clutch is slipping a little, well, you might drive 
 out and send the car back for me — still, there wouldn't 
 hardly be time " 
 
 Listening to them as to a play, Claire suddenly de- 
 sired to scream, " Oh, for heaven's sake quit fussing! 
 I'm going up and drown myself in the blue-room tap! 
 What does it matter! Walk! Take a surface car! 
 Don't fuss so ! " 
 
 Her wrath came from her feeling of guilt. Yes, 
 Milt had been commonplace. Had she done this to 
 him? Had she turned his cheerful ignorances into a 
 careful stupor? And she felt stuffy and choking and 
 overpacked with food. She wanted to be out on the 
 road, clear-headed, forcing her way through, an in- 
 dependent human being — ^with Milt not too far be- 
 hind. 
 
 Mrs. Gilson was droning, " I do think Mattie Vin- 
 cent is so nice." 
 
282 FREE AIR 
 
 " Rather dull I'd call her," yawned Mr. Gilson. 
 
 Mattie was the seventh of their recent guests whom 
 he had called dull by now. 
 
 " Not at all — oh, of course she doesn't dance on 
 tables and quote Maeterlinck, but she does have an 
 instinct for the niceties and the proprieties — her little 
 house is so sweet — everything just exactly right — it 
 may be only a single rose, but always chosen so care- 
 fully to melt into the background ; and such adorable 
 china — I simply die of envy every time I see her 
 Lowestoft plates. And such a quiet way of reproving 
 any bad taste — the time that crank university profes- 
 sor was out there, and spoke of the radical labor move- 
 ment, and Mattie just smiled at him and said, ' If you 
 don't mind, let's not drag filthy lumberjacks into the 
 drawing-room — they'd hate it just as much as we 
 would, don't you think, perhaps ? ' " 
 
 " Oh, damn nice china ! Oh, let's hang all spinsters 
 who are brightly reproving," Claire was silently rag- 
 ing. " And particularly and earnestly confound all 
 nicety and discretion of living." 
 
 She tried to break the spell of the Gilsons' fussing. 
 She false-heartedly fawned upon Mr. Gilson, and in- 
 quired : 
 
 " Is there anything very exciting going on at the 
 mills, Gene? " 
 
 " Exciting ? " asked Mr. Gilson incredulously. 
 " Why, how do you mean ? " 
 
FREE AIR 283 
 
 " Don't you find business exciting ? Why do you 
 do it then?" 
 
 " Oh, wellllll Of course Oh, yes, excit- 
 ing in a way. Well Well, we've had a jolly in- 
 teresting time making staves for candy pails — promises 
 to be wonderfully profitable. We have a new way of 
 cutting them. But you wouldn't be interested in the 
 machinery." 
 
 "Of course not. You don't bore Eva with your 
 horrid, headachy business-problems, do you?" Claire 
 cooed, with low cunning. 
 
 " Indeed no. Don't think a chap ought to inflict 
 his business on his wife. The home should be a place 
 of peace." 
 
 "Yes," said Claire. 
 
 But she wasn't thinking " Yes." She was think- 
 ing, " Milt, what worries me now isn't how I can risk 
 letting the ' nice people ' meet you. It's how I can ever 
 waste you on the ' nice people.' Oh, I'm spoiled for 
 cut-glass-and-velvet afternoons. Eternal spiritual ag- 
 ony over blue-room taps is too high a price even for 
 four-poster beds. I want to be driving! hiking! liv- 
 ing!" 
 
 That afternoon, after having agreed that Mr. 
 Johnny Martin was a bore, Mr. and Mrs. Gilson de- 
 cided to run out to the house of Mr. Johnny Martin. 
 They bore along the lifeless Claire. 
 
 Mr. Martin was an unentertaining bachelor who 
 
284 FREE AIR 
 
 entertained. There were a dozen supercilious young 
 married people at his bayside cottage when the Gil- 
 sons arrived. Among 'them were two eyebrow-arch- 
 ing young matrons whom Claire had not met — Mrs. 
 Corey and Mrs. Betz. 
 
 " We've all heard of you, Miss Boltwood," said 
 Mrs. Betz. " You come from the East, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes," fluttered Claire, trying to be cordial. 
 
 Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz looked at each other in a 
 motionless wink, and Mrs. Corey prodded : 
 
 "From New York?" 
 
 " No. Brooklyn." Claire tried not to make it too 
 short. 
 
 " Oh." The tacit wink was repeated. Mrs. Corey 
 said brightly — much too brightly — " I was born in 
 New York. I wonder if you know the Dudenants?" 
 
 Now Claire knew the Dudenants. She had danced 
 with that young ass Don Dudenant a dozen times. But 
 the devil did enter into her and possess her, and, to 
 Eva Gilson's horror, Claire said stupidly, " No-o, but 
 I think I've heard of them." 
 
 The condemning wink was repeated. 
 
 " I hear you've been doing such interesting things — 
 motoring and adventuring — you must have met some 
 terrible people along the way," fished Mrs. Betz. 
 
 " Yes, everybody does seem to feel that way. But 
 I'm afraid I found them terribly nice," flared Claire. 
 
 " I always say that common people can be most 
 
FREE AIR 285 
 
 agreeable," Mrs. Corey patronized. Before Claire 
 could kill her — there wasn't any homicidal weapon 
 in sight except a silver tea-strainer — Mrs. Corey had 
 pirouetted on, " Though I do think that we're much 
 too kind to workmen and all — the; labor situation is 
 getting to be abominable here in the West, and upon 
 my word, to keep a maid nowadays, you have to treat 
 her as though she were a countess." 
 
 " Why shouldn't maids be like countesses ? They're 
 much more important," said Claire sweetly. 
 
 It cannot be stated that Claire had spent any large 
 part of her time in reading Karl Marx, leading syn- 
 dicalist demonstrations, or hemming red internation- 
 alist flags, but at this instant she was a complete revo- 
 lutionist. She could have executed Mrs. Corey and 
 pretty Mrs. Betz with zeal ; she disliked the entire bour- 
 geoisie; she looked around for a Jap boy to call " com- 
 rade " and she again thought about the possibilities of 
 the tea-strainer for use in assassination. She stolidly 
 wore through the combined and exclamatory explana- 
 tions of Mrs. Corey, Mrs. Betz, Mrs. Gilson, and Mr. 
 Johnny Martin about the inherent viciousness of all 
 maids, and when the storm was over, she said in a 
 manner of honey and syrup: 
 
 " You were speaking of the Dudenants, weren't you, 
 Mrs. Corey? I do remember them now. Poor Don 
 Dudenant, isn't it a pity he's such a fool? His father 
 is really a very decent old bore." 
 
286 FREE AIR 
 
 " I," observed Mrs. Corey, in prim horror, " regard 
 the Dudenants as extremely delightful people, I fancy 
 we must be thinking of different families. I mean the 
 Manhattan Dudenants, not the Brooklyn family." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I meant the Manhattan family, too — the 
 one that made its fortune selling shoddy woolens in the 
 Civil War," caressed Claire. 
 
 Right there, her welcome by Mrs. Corey and Mrs. 
 Betz ceased; and without any of the unhappiness 
 which the thought would have caused her three months 
 before, Claire reflected, " How they hate me ! " 
 
 The Gilsons had a number of thoughts upon the 
 subject of tact to express to Claire on the way home. 
 But she, who had always smiled, who had been the 
 obedient guest, shrugged and snapped, "They're 
 idiots, those young women. They're impertinent 
 shopgirls in good frocks. I like your Seattle. It's a 
 glorious city. And I love so many of the fine, simple, 
 real people I've met here. I admire your progress. I 
 do know how miraculously you've changed it from a 
 mining camp. But for heaven's sake don't forget the 
 good common hardiness of the miners. Somehow, 
 London social distinctions seem ludicrous in Ameri- 
 can cities that twenty years ago didn't have jtnuch but 
 board sidewalks and saloons. I don't care whether 
 it's Seattle or Minneapolis or Omaha or Denver, I 
 refuse to worry about the Duchess of Corey and the 
 Baroness Betz and all the other wonderful imitations 
 
FREE AIR 287 
 
 of gilt. When a pair of finishing-school flappers like 
 Betz and Corey try to impress me with their superi- 
 ority to workmen, and their extreme aristocracy and 
 Easternness, they make me tired. I am the East ! " 
 
 She had made peace with the Gilsons by night; she 
 had been reasonably repentant about not playing the 
 game of her hosts; but inside her eager heart she snug- 
 gled a warm thought. She remembered how gaily she 
 had once promised, out on the road, to come to Milt's 
 room and cook for him. She thought of it with home- 
 sick desire. His room probably wasn't particularly 
 decorative, and she doubted his having an electric 
 range, but it would be fun to fry eggs again, to see 
 him fumbling with the dish-washing, to chatter and 
 plan golden futures, and not worry about the opin- 
 ions of Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz. 
 
 The next afternoon the limousine was not busy and 
 she borrowed it, with the handsome Greek chauffeur. 
 
 She gave him an address not far from the uni- 
 versity. 
 
 He complained, " Pardon me, miss, but I think you 
 have the wrong number. That block is a low quar- 
 ter." 
 
 " Probably ! But that's the right number ! " 
 
 He raised his Athenian eyebrows, and she realized 
 what a mistake she had made in not bringing the 
 lethal tea-strainer along. When they had stopped in 
 front of a cheap candy-store, he opened the door of 
 
288 FREE AIR 
 
 the car with such frigid reserve that she thought seri- 
 ously about slapping him. 
 
 She climbed the stingy, flapping stairs, and knocked 
 at the first door in the upper hall. It was opened by a 
 large apron, to which a sleepy woman was an un- 
 important attachment, and out of the mass of apron 
 and woman came a yawning, " Mr. Daggett's room is 
 down the hall on the right." 
 
 Claire knocked at a door which had at various 
 epochs been blue, yellow, and pink, and now was all 
 three. No answer. She tried the knob, went in. 
 
 She could not tell whether it was the barrenness 
 of the room, or Milt's carefulness, that caught her. 
 The uncarpeted boards of the floor) were well swept. 
 He had only one plate, one spoon, but they were 
 scoured, and put away on newspaper-covered shelves 
 in a cupboard made of a soap-box. Behind a calico 
 curtain was his new suit, dismayingly neat on its 
 hanger. On the edge of the iron sink primly washed 
 and spread out to dry, was a tattered old rag. At 
 the sight of it, at the thought of Milt solemnly wash- 
 ing dishes, the tears began to creep to her eyes. 
 
 There was but one picture in the room — a half-tone 
 of a girl, clipped from a magazine devoted to actresses. 
 The name was cut off. As she wondered at it, Claire 
 saw that the actress was very much like herself. 
 
 The only other ornament was a papier-mache figure 
 of a cat, a cat reminiscent of the Lady Vere de Vere. 
 
FREE AIR 289 
 
 Qaire picked it up. On the bottom was the price- 
 mark — three cents. 
 
 It was the price-mark that pierced her. She flung 
 across the room, dropped on his creaky cot-bed, 
 howled, " Oh, I've been a beast — a beast — a beast ! 
 All the pretty things — limousines and marble baths — 
 thinking so much of them, and not wanting them for 
 him! And he with so little, with just nothing — ^he 
 that would appreciate jolly things so much — here in 
 this den, and making it as tolerable as he can — and 
 me half ashamed of him instead of fighting for 
 
 him I belong with Corey and Betz. Oh, I'm so 
 
 ashamed, so bitterly ashamed." 
 
 She patted his bed smooth with nervous eager 
 fingers. 
 
 She scraped a pin-point of egg-yolk off a platter. 
 
 Before she had been home five minutes she had 
 written a note asking him to tea for next day. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE MORNING COAT OF MR. HUDSON B. 
 RIGGS 
 
 MR. HUDSON B. RIGGS now enters the tale 
 — somewhat tardily, and making a quick exit, 
 all in a morning coa^ too tight about the shoulders, 
 and a smile of festivity too tight about the lips. He 
 looked as improbable as an undertaker's rubber-plant. 
 Yet in his brief course he had a mighty effect upon 
 the progress of civilization as exemplified in the social 
 career of Mr. Milton Daggett. 
 
 Mr. Riggs had arrived at a golden position in 
 Alaskan mining engineering by way of the farm, the 
 section gang, the surveyor's chain, and prospecting; 
 and his thick hands showed his evolution. His pur- 
 pose in life was to please Mrs. Riggs, and he wasn't 
 ever going to achieve his purpose in life. She wore 
 spangles, and her corsets creaked, and she smiled nerv- 
 ously, and could tell in'a glance quicker than the i/ioo 
 kodak shutter whether or not a new acquaintance was 
 "worth cultivating." She had made Mr. Riggs thor- 
 oughly safe and thoroughly unhappy in the pursuit of 
 society. He stood about keeping from doing anything 
 he might want to, and he was profusely polite to young 
 cubs whom he longed to have in his office — so that he 
 could get even with them. 
 
 290 
 
FREE AIR 291 
 
 What Mr. Riggs wanted to do, at the third large 
 tea given by Mrs. Gilson for Miss Claire Boltwood. 
 was to sneak out on the sun-porch and play over the 
 new records on the phonograph ; but the things he had 
 heard from Mrs. Riggs the last time he'd done that 
 had convinced him that it was not a wise method of 
 escape. So he stood by the fireplace — safe on one 
 side at least — and ate lettuce sandwiches, which he 
 privately called " cow feed," and listened to a shining, 
 largely feminine crowd rapidly uttering unintelligible 
 epigrams from which he caught only the words, " Rip- 
 ping hand — trained nurse — whipcord — really worth 
 seeing — lost the ball near the second hole — most absurd 
 person — new maid — thanks so much." He was hop- 
 ing that some one would come around and let him be 
 agreeable. He knew that he stood the ride home with 
 Mrs. Riggs much better after he had been agreeable 
 to people he didn't like. 
 
 What Mr. Riggs did not know was that a young 
 man in uninteresting blue, who looked like a good 
 tennis-player, was watching him. It wasn't because 
 he detected a fellow soul in purgatory but because he 
 always was obsequious outside of his office that Mr. 
 Riggs bowed so profusely that he almost lost his tea- 
 cup, when the young man in blue drifted to him and 
 suggested, " I hear you're in the Alaskan mining- 
 game, Mr. Riggs." 
 
 " Oh yes." 
 
292 FREE AIR 
 
 " Do you get up there much now ? " 
 
 " No, not much." 
 
 "I hope to hit Alaska some day — I'm taking engi- 
 neering at the U." 
 
 "Do you? Straight?" Mr. Riggs violently set his 
 cup down on a table — Mrs. Riggs would later tell 
 him that he'd put it down in the wrong place, but 
 never mind. He leaned over Milt and snarled, " Offer 
 me a cigarette. I don't know if they smoke here, and 
 
 I dassn't be the first to try. Say, boy, Alaska I 
 
 wish I was there now ! Say, it beats all hell how good 
 tea can taste in a tin cup, and how wishy-washy it is 
 in china. Boy, I don't know anything about you, but 
 you look all right, and when you get ready to go to 
 Alaska, you come to me, and I'll see if I can't give 
 you a chance to go up there. But don't ever come 
 back!" 
 
 When the crowd began bubblingly to move toward 
 the door. Milt prepared to move — and bubble — with 
 them. Though Claire's note had sounded as though 
 she was really a little lonely, at the tea she had said 
 nothing to him except, " So glad you came. Do you 
 know Dolly Ransome? Dolly, this is my nice Mr. 
 Daggett. Take him and make him happy." 
 
 Dolly hadn't made him in the least happy. She 
 had talked about tennis; she had with some detail 
 described her remarkable luck in beating one Sally 
 Saunders three sets. Now Milt was learning tennis. 
 
FREE \IR 293 
 
 He was at the present period giving two hours a week 
 to tennis, two to dancing, two to bridge. But he pre- 
 ferred cleaning oil-wells to any of these toilsome ac- 
 complishments, and it must sadly be admitted that all 
 the while he was making his face bright at Dolly, he 
 was wondering what would happen if he interrupted 
 Dolly's gurgling, galloping, giggling multitudinousness 
 by shouting, " Oh, shut up ! " 
 
 When it seemed safe to go, and he tried to look as 
 though he too were oozing out to a Crane-Simplex, 
 Claire slipped beside him, soft as a shadow, and whis- 
 pered, " Please don't go. I want to talk to you. 
 Please!" There was fluttering wistfulness in her 
 voice, though instantly it was gone as she hastened 
 to the door and was to be heard asserting that she did 
 indeed love Seattle. 
 
 Milt looked out into the hall. He studied a console 
 with a curious black and white vase containing a 
 single peacock feather, and a gold mirror shimmering 
 against a gray wall. 
 
 " Lovely stuff. I like that mirror. Like a slew in 
 the evening. But it isn't worth being a slave for. 
 I'm not going to be a Mr. Riggs. Poor devil, he's 
 more of a servant than any of these maids. Certainly 
 am sorry for that poor fish. He'll have a chance to 
 take his coat off and sit down and smoke — ^when he's 
 dead!" 
 
 The guests were gone; the Gilsons up-stairs. Claire 
 
294 FREEAIR 
 
 came running, seized Milt's sleeve, coaxed him to the 
 davenport in the drawing-room — then sighed, and 
 rubbed her forehead, and looked so tired that he could 
 say nothing but, " Hope you haven't been overdoing." 
 
 " No, just — just talking too much." 
 
 He got himself to say, " Miss Ransome — the one 
 that's nuts about tennis — she's darn nice." 
 
 "Is she?" 
 
 " Yes, she's — she's What do you hear from 
 
 your father ? " 
 
 " Oh, he's back at work." 
 
 "Trip do him good?" 
 
 " Oh, a lot." 
 
 "Did he " 
 
 " Milt ! Tell me about you. What are you doing ? 
 What are you studying? How do you live? Do you 
 really cook your own meals? Do you begin to get 
 your teeth into the engineering? Oh, do tell me 
 everything. I want to know, so much ! " 
 
 "There isn't a whole lot to tell. Mostly I'm get- 
 ting back into math. Been out of touch with it. I 
 find that I know more about motors than most of the 
 fellows. That helps. And about living — oh, I keep 
 conservative. Did you know I'd sold my garage? " 
 
 "Oh, I didn't, I didn't!" 
 
 He wondered why she said it with such stooping 
 shame, but he went on mildly, " Well, I got a pretty 
 good price, but of course I don't want to take any 
 
FREE AIR 295 
 
 chances on running short of coin, so I'm not splurging 
 much. And " He looked at his nails, and whis- 
 tled a bar or two, and turned his head away, and 
 looked back with a shy, " And I'm learning to play 
 bridge and tennis and stuff! " 
 
 "Oh, my dear!" It was a cry of pain. She beat 
 her hands for a moment before she murmured, " When 
 are we going to have our lessons in dancing — and in 
 making an impression on sun-specks like Dolly Ran- 
 some? " 
 
 " I don't know," he parried. Then, looking at her 
 honestly, he confessed, " I don't believe we're ever 
 going to. Claire, I can't do it. I'm no good for this 
 tea game. You know how clumsy I was. I spilled 
 some tea, and I darn near tripped over some woman's 
 
 dress and Oh, I'm not afraid of them. Now that 
 
 I get a good close look at this bunch, they seem pretty 
 much like other folks, except maybe that one old 
 dame says ' cawn't.' But I can't do the manners stunt. 
 I can't get myself to give enough thought to how you 
 ought to hold a tea-cup." 
 
 " Oh, thbse things don't matter — they don't matter! 
 Besides, everybody likes you — only you're so terribly 
 cautious that you never let them see the force and 
 courage and all that wonderful sweet dear goodness 
 that's in you. And as for your manners — heaven 
 knows I'm no P. G. Wodehouse valet. But I'll teach 
 you all I know." 
 
296 FREE AIR 
 
 " Claire, I appreciate it a lot but I'm not so 
 
 darn sure I want to learn. I'm getting scared. I 
 watched that bird named Riggs here today. He's a 
 regular fellow, or he was, but now he's simply lost in 
 the shuffle. I don't want to be one of the million 
 ghosts in a city. Seattle is bad enough — it's so big 
 that I feel like a no-see-um in a Norway pine reserve. 
 But New York would be a lot worse. I don't want to 
 be a Mr. Riggs." 
 
 " Yes, but— I'm not a Mrs. Riggs ! " 
 
 "What do you " 
 
 He did not finish asking her what she meant. She 
 was in his arms ; she was whispering, " My heart is so 
 lonely;" and the room was still. The low sun flooded 
 the windows, swam in the mirror in the hall, but they 
 did not heed, did not see its gliding glory. 
 
 Not till there was a sound of footsteps did she burst 
 from his arms, spring to her reflection in the glass of a 
 picture, and shamefacedly murmur to him over her 
 shoulder, " My hair — it's a terrible giveaway ! " 
 
 He had followed her; he stood with his arm cir- 
 cling her shoulder. 
 
 She begged, "No. Please no. I'm frightened. 
 Let's — oh, let's have a walk or something before you 
 scamper home." 
 
 "Look! My dear! Let's run away, and explore 
 the town, and not come back till late evening." 
 
 " Yes. Let's." 
 
FREE AIR 297 
 
 They walked from Queen Anne Hill through the 
 city to the docks. There was nothing in their excited, 
 childish, " Oh, see that ! " and " There's a dandy car ! " 
 and " Ohhhhh, that's a Minnesota license — wonder 
 who it is ? " to confess that they had been so closely, 
 so hungrily together. 
 
 They swung along a high walk overlooking the 
 city wharf. They saw a steamer loading rails and 
 food for the government railroad in Alaska. They 
 exclaimed over a nest of little, tarry fishing-boats. 
 They watched men working late to unload Alaska 
 salmon. 
 
 They crossed the city to Jap Town and its writhing 
 streets, its dark alleys and stairways lost up the hill- 
 sides. They smiled at black-eyed children, and found 
 a Japanese restaurant, and tried to dine on raw fish 
 and huge shrimps and roots soaked in a very fair 
 grade of light-medium motor oil. 
 
 With Milt for guide, Claire discovered a Christian- 
 ity that was not of candles and shifting lights and in- 
 sinuating music, nor of carpets and large pews and 
 sound oratory, but of hoboes blinking in rows, and 
 girls in gospel bonnets, and little silver and crimson 
 placards of Bible texts. They stopped on a corner to 
 listen to a Pentecostal brother, to an I. W. W. speaker, 
 to a magnificent negro who boomed in an operatic 
 baritone that the Day of Judgment was coming on 
 April II, 1923, at three in the morning. 
 
298 FREE AIR 
 
 In the streets of Jap Town, in cheap motion-picture 
 theaters, in hotels for transient workmen, she found 
 life, running swift and eager and many-colored; and 
 it seemed to her that back in the house of four-posters 
 and walls of subdued gray, life was smothered in the 
 very best pink cotton-batting. Milt's delight in every 
 picturesque dark corner, and the colloquial eloquence 
 of the street-orators, stirred her. And when she saw 
 a shopgirl caress the hand of a slouching beau in 
 threadbare brown, her own hand slipped into Milt's 
 and clung there. 
 
 But they came shyly up to the Gilson hedge, and 
 when Milt chuckled, " Bully walk; let's do it again," 
 she said only, " Oh, yes, I did like it. Very much." 
 
 He had abruptly dropped his beautiful new felt hat. 
 He was clutching her arms, demanding, " Can you 
 like me? Oh my God, Claire, I can't play at love. 
 I'm mad — I just live in you. You're my blood and 
 soul. Can I become — the kind of man you like ? " 
 
 " My dear ! " She was fiercely addressing not him 
 alone but the Betzes and Coreys and Gilsons and Jeff 
 Saxtons, " don't you forget for one moment that all 
 these people — here or Brooklyn either — that seem so 
 aloof and amused, are secretly just plain people with 
 enamel on, and you're to have the very best enamel, 
 if it's worth while. I'm not sure that it is " 
 
 " You're going to kiss me ! " 
 
 " No ! Please no ! I don't — I don't understand us, 
 
FREE AIR 299 
 
 even now. Can't we be just playmates a while yet? 
 But — I do like you ! " 
 
 She fled. When she reached the hall she found her 
 eyelids wet. 
 
 It was the next afternoon 
 
 Claire was curled on the embroidered linen counter- 
 pane of her bed, thinking about chocolates and Brook- 
 lyn and driving through Yellowstone Park and corn 
 fritters and satin petticoats versus crepe de chine and 
 Mount Rainier and Milt and spiritualism and manicur- 
 ing, when Mrs. Gilson prowled into her room and de- 
 manded "Busy?" so casually that Claire was suspi- 
 cious. 
 
 " No. Not very. Something up ? " 
 
 " A nice party. Come down and meet an amusing 
 man from Alaska." 
 
 Claire took her time powdering her nose, and am- 
 bled down-stairs and into the drawing-room, to 
 find 
 
 Jeff Saxton, Mr. Geoffrey Saxton, who is the height 
 of Brooklyn Heights, standing by the fireplace, smiling 
 at her. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 THE ENEMY LOVE 
 
 BUT at second glance — was it Jeff? This man 
 was tanned to a thick even brown in which his 
 eyes were startlingly white. His hands were burned 
 red; there was a scar across one of them; and he was 
 standing with them cockily at his hips, all unlike the 
 sleekly, noisily quiet Jeff of Brooklyn. He was in 
 corduroy trousers and belted corduroy jacket, with a 
 khaki-colored flannel shirt. 
 
 But his tranquilly commanding smile was Jeff's, 
 and his lean grace; and Jeff's familiar amused voice 
 greeted her paralyzed amazement with : 
 
 " Hello, pard ! Ain't I met you some place in Mon- 
 tana?" 
 
 " Well— where— in— the " 
 
 "Just landed from Alaska. Had to run up there 
 from California. How are you, little princess? " 
 
 His hand was out to her, then both hands, beseech- 
 ingly, but she did not run to him, as she had at Flat- 
 head Lake. She stalked him cautiously, and shook 
 hands — much too heartily. She sought cover in the 
 wing-chair and — much too cordially — she invited: 
 
 " Tell me all about it." 
 
 He was watching her. Already his old pursuing 
 300 
 
FREE AIR 301 
 
 determination, his steady dignity, were beginning to 
 frighten her. But he calmly dropped into a straight 
 chair, and obliged: 
 
 " It's really been quite a lively journey. Didn't 
 know I could like roughing-it so well. And it was real 
 roughing-it, pretty much. Oh, not dangerous at all, 
 but rather vigorous. I had to canoe up three hundred 
 miles of a shallow river, with one Indian guide, mak- 
 ing a portage every ten miles or so, and we got tipped 
 over in the rapids now and then — the Big Chief almost 
 got drowned once — and we camped at night in the 
 original place where they invented mosquitoes — and 
 one morning I shot a black bear just in time to keep 
 him from eating ray boots." 
 
 " Oh ! " she sighed in admiration, and " Oh ! " again, 
 uneasily. 
 
 Nothing had been said about it; Jeff was the last 
 person in the world to spoil his triumph by comment- 
 ing on it; but both of them knew that they had vio- 
 lently changed places; that now it was she who was 
 the limp indoor-dweller, and he who was the ruddy 
 ranger; that as he had admired her at Flathead Lake, 
 so now it was hers to admire, and his to be serenely 
 heroic. 
 
 She was not far from the worshiping sub-deb in 
 her sighing, "How did you get the scar? " 
 
 "That? Oh, nothing." 
 
 " Please tell me." 
 
302 FREEAIR 
 
 " Really and truly. Nothing at all. Just a drunken 
 fellow with a knife, playing the fool. I didn't have 
 to touch him — quite sure he could have given me a 
 frightful beating and all that sort of thing. It was the 
 Big Chief who got rid of him." 
 
 " He— cut you ? With a kniiiiiife ? Ohhhhhhh ! " 
 
 She ran to him, pityingly stroked the scar, looked 
 down at him with filmy eyes. Then she tried to re- 
 treat, but he retained her hand, glanced up at her as 
 though he knew her every thought. She felt weak. 
 How could she escape him ? " Please ! " she begged 
 flutteringly. 
 
 If he held her hand another moment, she trembled, 
 she'd be on his lap, in his arms — ^losL And he was 
 holding it. He was 
 
 Oh, he was too old for her. Yes, and too paternal. 
 
 But still Life with Jeff would be protected, 
 
 kindly, honorable. 
 
 Yet all the time she wanted, and stormily knew she 
 wanted, to be fleeing to the boy Milt, her mate; to run 
 away with him, hand in hand, discovering all the col- 
 ored world, laughing at life, not afraid of losing dig- 
 nity. In fear of Jeff's very kindliness and honor, she 
 jerked her hand free. Then she tried to smile like 
 a clever fencer. 
 
 As she retreated to her chair she stammered, " Did 
 you Was Alaska interesting ? " 
 
 He did not let her go, this time. Easy, cat-like for 
 
FREE AIR 303 
 
 all his dry gravity, he sauntered after her, and with 
 a fine high seriousness pleaded his case : 
 
 " Claire dear, those few weeks of fighting nature 
 were a revelation to me. I'm going to have lots more 
 of it. As it happens, they need me there. There's 
 plenty of copper, but there's big transportation and 
 employment problems that I seem better able to solve 
 than the other chaps — though of course I'm an abso- 
 lute muflf when it comes to engineering problems. But 
 I've had certain training and — I'm going to arrange 
 things so that I get up there at least once a year. Next 
 summer I'll make a much longer trip — see the moun- 
 tains — oh, glorious mountains — and funny half -Rus- 
 sian towns, and have some fishing Wandering. 
 
 The really big thing. Even finer than your superb 
 plucky trip through " 
 
 " Wasn't plucky ! I'm a cry baby," she said, like 
 a bad, contradictory little girl. 
 
 He didn't argue it. He smiled and said " Tut ! " 
 and placidly catalogued her with, " You're the pluck- 
 iest girl I've ever seen, and it's all the more amazing 
 because you're not a motion-picture Tomboy, but es- 
 sentially exquisite " 
 
 " I'm a grub." 
 
 " Very well, then. You're a grub. So am I. And 
 I like it. And when I make the big Alaskan trip 
 next year I want you to go along ! Claire ! Haven't 
 you any idea how terribly close to me the thought of 
 
304 FREE AIR 
 
 you has been these weeks? You've guided me 
 through the wilderness " 
 
 " It's I'm glad." She sprang up, beseeching, 
 
 " Jeff dear, you're going to stay for tea ? I must run 
 up and powder my nose." 
 
 " Not until you say you're glad to see me. Child 
 
 dear, we've been ambling along, and No. You 
 
 aren't a child any more. You're a woman. And if 
 I've never been quite a man, but just a dusty office- 
 machine, that's gone now. I've got the wind of the 
 wilderness in my lungs. Man and woman! My 
 
 woman! That's all I'm going to say now, but 
 
 Oh my God, Claire, I do need you so ! " 
 
 He drew her head to his shoulder, and for an 
 instant she rested there. But as she looked up, she 
 saw coming age in the granulated skin of his throat. 
 
 " He needs me — ^but he'd boss me. I'd be the cun- 
 ning child-wife, even at fifty," she worried, and 
 " Hang him, it's like his superiority to beat poor Milt 
 even at adventuring — and to be such a confounded 
 Modest Christian Gentleman about it!" 
 
 " You'd — you're so dreadfully managing," she 
 sighed aloud. 
 
 For the first time in all their acquaintanceship, Jeff's 
 pride broke, and he held her away from him, while 
 his lips were pathetic, and he mourned, " Why do you 
 always try to hurt me ? " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, I don't." 
 
FREE AIR 305^ 
 
 " Is it because you resent the decent things I have 
 managed to do?" 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 " If I have an idea for a party, you think I'm 
 ' managing.' If I think things out deeply, you say 
 I'm dull." 
 
 " Oh, you aren't. I didn't mean " 
 
 ". What are you ? A real woman, or one of these 
 flirts, that love to tease a man because he's foolish 
 enough to be honestly in love? " 
 
 " I'm not— hon-esdy I'm not, Jeff. It's You 
 
 don't quite make me It's just that I'm not in love 
 
 with you. I like you, and respect you terribly, 
 but " 
 
 "I'm going to make you love me." His clutching 
 fingers hurt her arm, and somehow she was not angry, 
 but stirred. " But I'm not going to try now. Forget 
 the Alaskan caveman. Remember, I haven't even used 
 the word ' love.' I've just chatted about fjords, or 
 
 whatever they are, but one of these days No. 
 
 I won't do it. I want to stay here in Seattle a few 
 
 days, and take you on jolly picnics, but Would 
 
 you rather I didn't even do that? I'm " He 
 
 dropped her arm, kneaded his forehead with the heel 
 of his palm. " I can't stand being regarded as a 
 bothersome puppy. I can't stand it ! I can't ! " 
 
 " Please stay, Jeff ! We'll have some darling drives 
 and things. We'll go up Rainier as far as we can." 
 
3o6 FREE AIR 
 
 He stayed. He was anecdotal and amusing at tea, 
 that afternoon. Claire saw how the Gilsons, and two 
 girls who dropped in, admired him. That made her 
 uneasy. And when Mrs. Gilson begged him to- leave 
 his hotel and stay with them, he refused with a quick 
 look at Claire that hurt her. 
 
 " He wants me to be free. He's really so much 
 more considerate than Milt. And I hurt him. Even 
 his pride broke down. And I've spoiled Milt's life by 
 meddling. And I've hurt the Gilsons' feelings. And 
 I'm not much of a comfort to father. Oh, I'm abso- 
 lutely no good," she agonized. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 THE VIRTUOUS PLOTTERS 
 
 MR. GEOFFREY SAXTON, in Alaskan tan 
 and New York evening clothes and Piccadilly 
 poise, was talking to the Eugene Gilsons while Claire 
 finished dressing for the theater. 
 
 Mrs. Gilson observed, " She's the dearest thing. 
 We've become awfully fond of her. But I don't 
 think she knows what she wants to do with life. 
 She's rather at loose ends. Who is this Daggett boy 
 — some university student — whom she seems to like? " 
 
 "Well, since you speak of him I hadn't meant 
 
 to, unless you did. I want to be fair to him. What 
 did she tell you about him?" Jeff asked confidentially. 
 
 " Nothing, except that he's a young engineer, and 
 frightfully brave and all those uncomfortable virtues, 
 and she met him in Yellowstone Park or somewhere, 
 and he saved her from a bear — or was it a tramp? 
 — from something unnecessary, at any rate." 
 
 " Eva, I don't want to be supercilious, but the truth 
 is that this young Daggett is a rather dreadful person. 
 He's been here at the house, hasn't he? How did he 
 strike you?" 
 
 " Not at all. He's silent, and as dull as lukewarm 
 tea, but perfectly inoffensive." 
 
 "Then he's cleverer than I thought! Daggett is 
 anything but dull and inoffensive, and if he can play 
 
 307 
 
3o8 FREE AIR 
 
 that estimable role ! It seems that he is the son 
 
 of some common workman in the Middlewest; he 
 isn't an engineer at all; he's really a chauffeur or a 
 taxi-driver or something; and he ran into Claire and 
 Henry B. on the road, and somehow insinuated him- 
 self into their graces — far from being silent and com- 
 monplace, he appears to have some strange kind of 
 charm which," Jeff sighed, " I don't understand at all 
 I simply don't understand it! 
 
 " I met him in Montana with the most gorgeously 
 atrocious person I've ever encountered — one Pinky 
 Westlake, or some such a name — ^positively, a crook! 
 He tried to get Boltwood and myself interested in the 
 commonest kind of a mining swindle — ^hinted that we 
 were to join him in cheating the public. And this 
 Daggett was his partner — they actually traveled to- 
 gether. But I do want to be just. I'm not sure that 
 Daggett, was aware of his partner's dishonesty. That 
 isn't what worries me about the lad. It's his utter 
 impossibility. He's as crude as iron-ore. When he's 
 being careful, he may manage to be inconspicuous, 
 but give him the chance 
 
 " Really, I'm not exaggerating when I say that 
 at thirty-five he'll be dining in his shirt-sleeves, and 
 sitting down to read the paper with his shoes off and 
 feet up on the table. But Claire — you know what 
 a dear Quixotic soul she is — she fancies that because 
 this fellow repaired a puncture or something of the 
 
FREE AIR 309 
 
 sort for her on the road, she's indebted to him, and 
 the worse he is, the more she feels that she must 
 
 help him. And affairs of that kind Oh, it's quite 
 
 too horrible, but there have been cases, you know, 
 where girls as splendid and fine and well-bred as Claire 
 herself have been trapped into low marriages by their 
 loyalty to cadging adventurers ! " 
 
 "Oh!" groaned Mrs. Gilson; and "Good Lord!" 
 lamented Mr. Gilson, delighted by the possibility of 
 tragedy ; and " Really, I'm not exaggerating," said 
 Jeff enthusiastically. 
 
 " What are we going to do? " demanded Mrs. Gil- 
 son; while Mr. Gilson, being of a ready and inventive 
 mind, exclaimed, " By Jove, you ought to kidnap her 
 and marry her yourself, Jeff! " 
 
 "I'd like to. But I'm too old." 
 
 They beautifully assured him that he was a blithe 
 young thing with milk teeth; and with a certain satis- 
 faction Jeff suggested, " I tell you what we might do. 
 Of course it's an ancient stunt, but it's good. I judge 
 that Daggett hasn't been here at the house much. 
 Why not have him here so often that Claire will 
 awaken to his crudity, and get sick of him ? " 
 
 " We'll do it," thrilled Mrs. Gilson. " We'll have 
 him for everything from nine-course dinners with 
 Grandmother Eaton's napkins on view, to milk and 
 cold ham out of the ice-box. When Claire doesn't 
 invite him, I will ! " 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 THE KITCHEN INTIMATE 
 
 MILT had become used to the Gilson drawing- 
 room. He was no longer uncomfortable in 
 the presence of its sleek fatness, though at first (not 
 knowing that there were such resources as interior 
 decorators), he had been convinced that, to have 
 created the room, the Gilsons must have known every- 
 thing in the world. Now he glanced familiarly at 
 its white paneling, its sconces like silver candlesticks, 
 the inevitable davenport inevitably backed by an 
 amethyst-shaded piano lamp and a table crowded with 
 silver boxes and picture-frames. He liked the win- 
 someness of light upon velvet and polished wood. 
 
 It was not the drawing-room but the kitchen that 
 dismayed him. 
 
 In Schoenstrom he had known that there must some- 
 where be beautiful "parlors," but he had trusted in 
 his experience of kitchens. Kitchens, according to his 
 philosophy, were small smelly rooms of bare floors, 
 and provided with one oilcloth-covered table, one stove 
 (the front draft always broken and propped up with 
 the lid-lifter), one cupboard with panes of tin pierced 
 in rosettes, and one stack of dirty dishes. 
 
 But the Gilson kitchen had the efficiency of a 
 310 
 
FREE AIR 3" 
 
 laboratory and the superciliousness of a hair-dresser's 
 booth. With awe Milt beheld walls of white tiles, a 
 cork floor, a gas-range large as a hotel-stove, a ceil- 
 ing-high refrigerator of enamel and nickel, zinc-topped 
 tables, and a case of utensils like a surgeon's knives. 
 It frightened him; it made more hopelessly unap- 
 proachable than ever the Alexandrian luxury of the 
 great Gilsons. . . . The Vanderbilts' kitchen must be 
 like this. And maybe King George's. 
 
 He was viewing the kitchen upon the occasion of an 
 intimate Sunday evening supper to which he had been 
 yearningly invited by Mrs. Gilson. The maids were 
 all out. The Gilsons and Claire, Milt and Jeff Saxton, 
 shoutingly prepared their own supper. While Mrs. 
 Gilson scrambled eggs and made coffee, the others 
 set the table, and brought cold ham and a bowl of 
 salad from the ice-box. 
 
 Milt had intended to be a silent but deft servitor. 
 When he had heard that he was to come to supper 
 with the returned Mr. GeoflFrey Saxton. he had first 
 been panic-shaken, then resolved. He'd " let old iron- 
 face Saxton do the high and mighty. Let him stand 
 around and show off his clothes and adjectives, way 
 he did at Flathead Lake." But he, Milt, would be " on 
 the job." He'd help get supper, and calmly ignore 
 Jeff's rudeness. 
 
 Only — ^Jeff wasn't rude. He greeted Milt with, 
 "Ah, Daggett! This is so nice! " And Milt had no 
 
312 FREE AIR 
 
 chance to help. It was Jeff who anticipated him and 
 with a pleasant, " Let me get that — I'm kitchen- 
 broke," snatched up the cold ham and salad. It was 
 Jeff who found the supper plates, while Milt was 
 blunderingly wondering how any one family could use 
 a " whole furniture-store-full of different kinds of 
 china." It was Jeff who sprang to help Claire wheel 
 in the tea-wagon, and so captured the chance to speak 
 to her for which Milt had been maneuvering these 
 five minutes. 
 
 When they were settled, Jeff glowed at him, and 
 respectfully offered, " I thought of you so often, Dag- 
 gett, on a recent little jaunt of mine. You'd have been 
 helpful." 
 
 " Where was that? " asked Milt suspiciously (won- 
 dering, and waiting to see, whether you could take cold 
 ham in your fingers). 
 
 " Oh, in Alaska." 
 
 "In — Alaska?" Milt was dismayed. 
 
 " Yes, just a business trip there. There's some- 
 thing I wish you'd advise me about." 
 
 He was humble. And Milt was uneasy. He 
 grumbled, "What's that?" 
 
 " I've been wondering whether it would be possible 
 to use wireless telephony in Alaska. But I'm such 
 
 a dub at electricity. Do you know What would 
 
 be the cost of installing a wireless telephone plant with 
 a hundred-mile radius?" 
 
FREE AIR 313 
 
 "Gee, I don't know!" 
 
 " Oh, so sorry. Well, I wonder if you can tell 
 me about wireless telegraphy, then ? " 
 
 " No, I don't know anything about that either." 
 
 Milt had desperately tried to make his answer 
 
 gracious but somehow He hated this devil's 
 
 obsequiousness more than he had his chilliness at 
 Flathead Lake. He had a feeling that the Gilsons 
 had delightedly kicked each other under the table; 
 that, for all her unchanging smile, Claire was un- 
 happy. . . . And she was so far off, a white wraith 
 floating beyond his frantic grasp. 
 
 " It doesn't matter, really. But I didn't know 
 
 So you've started in the engineering school at the 
 University of Washington," Saxton was purring. 
 " Have you met Gid Childers there — son of old 
 Senator Childers — charming people." 
 
 " I've seen him. He has a Stutz — no, his is the 
 Mercer," sighed Milt. 
 
 He hated himself for it, but he couldn't quite keep 
 the awe out of his voice. People with Mercers 
 
 Claire seemed to be trying to speak. She made a 
 delicate, feminine, clairesque approximation to clear- 
 ing her throat. But Jef¥ ignored her and with almost 
 osculatory affection continued to Milt : 
 
 " Do let me know if there's anything I can do to 
 help you. We're acquainted with two or three of 
 your engineering faculty at the Office. They write 
 
314 FREE AIR 
 
 in about various things. Do you happen to know Dr. 
 Philgren?" 
 
 "Oh yes. Say! He's a wonder!" Milt was be- 
 trayed into exclaiming. 
 
 " Yes. Good chap, I believe. He's been trying to 
 get a job with us. We may give him one. Just tell 
 him you're a friend of mine, and that he's to give you 
 any help he can." 
 
 Milt choked on a "Thanks." 
 
 " And — now that we're just the family here to- 
 gether — how goes the financial side? Can I be of 
 any assistance in introducing you to some engineering 
 firm where you could do a little work on the side ? You 
 could make quite a little money " 
 
 So confoundedly affectionate and paternal 
 
 Milt said irritably, " Thanks, but I don't need to do 
 any work. I've got plenty of money." 
 
 " How pleasant I " Saxton's voice was smooth as 
 marshmallow. " You're fortunate. I had quite a 
 struggle to get through Princeton." 
 
 Wasn't Mr. Gilson contrasting Saxton's silk shirt 
 with Milt's darned cotton covering, and in light of 
 that contrast chuckling at Milt's boast and Saxton's 
 modesty? Milt became overheated. His scalp prickled 
 and his shoulder-blades were damp. As Saxton turned 
 from him, and crooned to Claire, " More ham, 
 honey?" Milt hated himself. He was in much of the 
 dramatic but undesirable position of a man in pajamas, 
 
FREE AIR 315, 
 
 not very good pajamas, who has been locked out in 
 the hotel corridor by the slamming of his door. He 
 was in the frame of mind of a mongrel, of a real 
 Boys' -Dog, at a Madison Square dog-show. He had a 
 faint shrewd suspicion of Saxton's game. But what 
 could he do about it? 
 
 He felt even more out of place when the family 
 forgot him and talked about people of whom he had 
 never heard. 
 
 He sat alone on an extremely distant desert isle and 
 ate cold ham and wished he were in Schoenstrom. 
 
 Claire had recovered her power of speech. She 
 seemed to be trying to bring him into the conversa- 
 tion, so that the family might appreciate him. 
 
 She hesitated, and thought with creased brows, and 
 
 brought out, " Uh, uh, oh Oh MiU : How much 
 
 is gas selling at now ? " . . . 
 
 Milt left that charming and intimate supper-party at 
 nine. He said, " Got to work on — on my analytical 
 geometry," as though it was a lie; and he threw 
 " Good night " at Saxton as though he hated his kind, 
 good benefactor; and when he tried to be gracious 
 to Mrs. Gilson the best he could get out was, " Thanks 
 f inviting me." They expansively saw him to the 
 door. Just as he thought that he had escaped, Saxton 
 
 begged, " Oh, Daggett, I was arguing with a chap 
 
 What color are Holstein-Friesian catde ? Red ? " 
 
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 " Black and white," Milt said eageriy. 
 
 He heard Mrs. Gilson giggle. , 
 
 He stood on the terrace wiping his forehead and, 
 without the least struggle, finally and irretrievably 
 admitting that he would never see Claire Boltwood or 
 any of her friends again. Not — never! 
 
 He had received from Mrs. Gilson a note inviting 
 him to share their box at the first night of a three- 
 night Opera Season. He had spent half a day in try- 
 ing to think of a courteously rude way of declining. 
 
 A straggly little girl came up from the candy-shop 
 below his room, demanding, " Say, are you Mr. Dag- 
 gett? Say, there's some woman wants to talk to you 
 on our telephone. Say, tell them we ain't supposed to 
 be no messenger-office. You ain't supposed to call no 
 up-stairs people on our telephone. We ain't supposed 
 
 to leave the store and go trotting all over town to 
 
 Gee, a nickel, gee, thank you, don't mind what ma 
 says, she's always kicking." 
 
 On the telephone, he heard Claire's, voice in an agi- 
 tated, " Milt ! Meet me down-town, at the Imperial' 
 Motion Picture Theater, right away. Something I've 
 got to tell you. I'll be in the lobby. Hurry ! " 
 
 When he bolted in she was already in the lobby, 
 agitatedly looking over a frame of " stills." She ran 
 to him, hooked her fingers in his lapel, poured out, 
 " They've invited you to the opera ? I want you to 
 
FREE AIR 317 
 
 come and put it all over them. I'm almost sure there's 
 a plot. They want to show me that you aren't used 
 to tiaras and saxophones and creaking dowagers and 
 tulle. Beat 'em ! Beat 'em ! Come to the opera and be 
 awf 'ly aloof and supercilious. You can ! Yes, you can ! 
 And be sure — wear evening clothes. Now I've got to 
 hurry." 
 
 " B-but " 
 
 " Don't disappoint me. I depend on you. Oh, say 
 you will ! " 
 
 "I will!" 
 
 She was gone, whisking into the Gilson limousine. 
 He was in a glow at her loyalty, in a tremor of anger 
 at the meddlers. 
 
 But he had never worn evening clothes. 
 
 He called it "a dress-suit," and before the compli- 
 cations of that exotic garb, he was flabby with 
 anxiety. To Milt and to Schoenstrom — to Bill Mc- 
 Golwey, even to Prof Jones and the greasily prosper- 
 ous Heinie Rauskukle — the dress-suit was the symbol 
 and proof, the indication and manner, of sophisticated 
 wealth. In Schoenstrom even waiters do not wear 
 dress-suits. For one thing there aren't any waiters. 
 There is one waitress at the Leipzig House, Miss 
 Annie Schweigenblat, but you wouldn't expect Miss 
 Schweigenblat to deal them off the arm in black 
 trousers with braid down the side. 
 
 No; a dress-suit was what the hero wore in the 
 
3i8 FREE AIR 
 
 movies; and the hero in the movies, when he wasn't 
 a cowpuncher, was an ex-captain of the Yale foot- 
 ball team, and had chambers and a valet. You could 
 tell him from the valet because he wasn't so bald. It 
 is true that Milt had heard that in St. Cloud there 
 were people who wore dress-suits at parties, but then 
 St. Cloud was a city, fifteen or sixteen thousand. 
 
 " How could he get away with a dress-suit? How 
 could he keep from feeling foolish in a low-cut vest, 
 and what the deuce would he do with the tails? Did 
 you part 'em or roll 'em up, when you sat down ? And 
 wouldn't everybody be able to tell from his foolish 
 look that he didn't belong in one?" He could hear 
 A.D.T. boys and loafers in front of pool rooms 
 whispering, " Look at the piker in the rented soup 
 and fish!" 
 
 For of course he'd rent one. Nobody bought them 
 — except plutes like Henry B. Boltwood. 
 
 He agitatedly walked up and down for an hour, 
 peering into haberdashery windows, looking for a 
 kind-faced young man. He found him, in Ye Pall 
 Mall Toggery Shoppe & Shoes; an open-faced young 
 man who was gazing through the window as spar- 
 klingly as though he was thinking of going as a mis- 
 sionary to India — and liked curry. Milt ironed out 
 his worried face, clumped in, demanded fraternally, 
 " Say, old man, don't some of these gents' furnishings 
 stores have kind of little charts that tell just what you 
 
FREE AIR 319 
 
 wear with dress-suits and Prince Alberts and every- 
 thing?" 
 
 " You bet," said the kind-faced young man. 
 
 West of Chicago, " You bet " means " Rather," and 
 " Yes indeed," and " On the whole I should be inclined 
 to fancy that there may be some vestiges of accuracy 
 in your curious opinion," and " You're a liar but I 
 can't afford to say so." 
 
 The kind-faced young man brought from behind the 
 counter a beautiful brochure illustrated with photo- 
 graphs of Phoebus Apollo in what were described as 
 " American Beauty Garments — neat, natty, nobby, 
 new." The center pages faithfully catalogued the 
 ties, shirts, cuff-links, spats, boots, hats, to wear with 
 evening clothes, morning clothes, riding clothes, tennis 
 costumes, polite mourning. 
 
 As he looked it over Milt felt that his wardrobe al- 
 ready contained all these gentlemanly possessions. 
 
 With the aid of the clerk and the chart he purchased 
 a tradition-haunted garment with a plate-armor bosom 
 and an opening as crooked as the Missouri River; a 
 white tie which in his strong red hands looked as silly 
 as a dead fish; waistcoat, pearl links, and studs. For 
 the first time, except for seizures of madness during 
 two or three visits to Minneapolis motor accessory 
 stores, he caught the shopping-fever. The long shin- 
 ing counter, the trim red-stained shelves, the glitter- 
 ing cases, the racks of flaunting ties, were beautiful 
 
3ao FREE AIR 
 
 to him and beckoning. He revolved a pleasantly 
 clicking rack of ties, then turned and fought his way 
 out. 
 
 He bought pumps — ^which cost exactly twice as much 
 as the largest sum which he had allowed himself. He 
 bought a newspaper, and in the want-columns found 
 the advertisement: 
 
 Silberfarb the Society Tailor 
 
 DRESS SUITS TO RENT 
 
 Snappiest in the City 
 
 Despite the superlative snappiness of Mr. Silber- 
 farb's dress-suits his establishment was a loft over a 
 delicatessen, approached by a splintery stairway along 
 which hung shabby signs announcing the upstairs 
 offices of " J. L. & T. J. O'Regan, Private Detectives," 
 " The Zenith Spiritualist Church, Messages by Rev. 
 Lulu Paughouse," " The International Order of Live 
 Ones, Seattle Wigwam," and "Mme. Lavourie, 
 Sulphur Baths." The dead air of the hallway sug- 
 gested petty crookedness. Milt felt that he ought to 
 fight somebody but, there being no one to fight, he 
 banged along the flapping boards of the second-floor 
 hallway to the ground-glass door of Silberfarb the 
 Society Tailor, who was also, as an afterthought 
 on a straggly placard, " Pressng & Cleang While U 
 Wait." 
 
 He belligerently shouldered into a low room. The 
 
FREE AIR 321 
 
 light from the one window was almost obscured by 
 racks of musty-smelling black clothes which stretched 
 away from him in two dismal aisles that resembled a 
 morgue of unhappy dead men indecently hung up on 
 hooks. On a long, clumsily carpentered table, a small 
 Jew, coUarless, sweaty, unshaven, was darning trousers 
 under an evil mantle gaslight. The Jew wrung out his 
 hands and tried to look benevolent. 
 
 " Want to rent a dress-suit," said Milt. 
 
 " I got just the t'ing for you ! " 
 
 The little man unfolded himself, galloped down the 
 aisle, seized the first garment that came to hand, and 
 came back to lay it against Milt's uncomfortable frame, 
 bumbling, " Fine, mister, fy-en ! " 
 
 Milt studied the shiny-seamed, worn-buttonholed, 
 limp object with dislike. Its personality was disin- 
 tegrated. The only thing he liked about it was the 
 good garage stink of gasoline. 
 
 " That's almost worn out," he growled. 
 
 At this sacrilege Mr. Silberfarb threw up his hands, 
 with the dingy suit flapping in them like a bed-quilt 
 shaken from a tenement window. He looked Milt all 
 over, coldly. His red but shining eyes hinted that 
 Milt was a clodhopper and no honest wearer of eve- 
 ning clothes. Milt felt humble, but he snapped, " No 
 good. Want something with class." 
 
 " Veil, that was good enough for a university pro- 
 fessor at the big dance, but if you say so " 
 
322 FREE AIR 
 
 In the manner of one who is being put to an unfair 
 amount of trouble, Mr. Silberfarb returned the 
 paranoiac dress-suit to the rack, sighing patiently as 
 he laboriously draped it on a hanger. He peered and 
 pawed. He crowed with throaty triumph and brought 
 back a rich ripe thing of velvet collar and cuffs. He 
 fixed Milt with eyes that had become as sulky as the 
 eyes of a dog in August dust. 
 
 " Now that — ^you can't beat that, if you vant class, 
 and it'll fit you like a glove. Oh, that's an ellllegant 
 garment ! " 
 
 Shaking himself out of the spell of those contemptu- 
 ous eyes Milt opened his brochure, studied the chart, 
 and in a footnote found, " Never wear velvet collars 
 or cuffs with evening coat." 
 
 "Nope. Nix on the velvet," he remarked. 
 
 Then the little man went mad and ran around in 
 ■circles. He flung the ellllegant garment on the table. 
 He flapped his arms, and wailed, " What do you vant? 
 what do you vannnnt? That's a hundred-and-fifty- 
 dollar dress-suit! That belonged to one of the richest 
 men in the city. He sold it to me because he was 
 going to Japan." 
 
 " Well, you can send it to Japan after him. I want 
 something decent. Have you got it — or shall I go 
 some place else?" 
 
 The tailor instantly became affectionate. " How 
 about a nice Tuxedo ? " he coaxed 
 
FREE AIR 323 
 
 " Nope. It says here — let me see — oh yes, here it 
 is — it says here in the book that for the theater-with- 
 ladies, should not wear ' dinner-coat or so-called 
 Tuxedo, but ' " 
 
 "Oh, Jem fellows what writes books they don't 
 know nothing. Absolute ! They make it up." 
 
 " Huh ! Well, I guess I'll take my chance on them. 
 The factory knows the ignition better 'n any repair- 
 man." 
 
 " Veil say, you're a hard fellow to please. I'll give 
 you one of my reserve stock, but you got to leave me 
 ten dollars deposit instead of five." 
 
 Mr. Silberfarb quite cheerfully unlocked a glass 
 case behind the racked and ghostly dead; he brought 
 out a suit that seemed to Milt almost decent. And it 
 almost fitted when, after changing clothes in a broil- 
 ing, boiling, reeking, gasoline-pulsing hole behind the 
 racks, he examined it before a pier-glass. But he 
 caught the tailor assisting the fit by bunching up a 
 roll of cloth at the shoulder. Again Milt snapped, and 
 again the tailor suffered and died, and to a doubting 
 heathen world maintained the true gospel of " What 
 do you vannnnt? It ain't stylish to have the dress- 
 suit too tight ! All the gents is wearing 'em loose and 
 graceful." But in the end, after Milt had gone as 
 far as the door, Mr. Silberfarb admitted that one dress- 
 coat wouldn't always fit all persons without some 
 alterations. 
 
324 FREE AIR 
 
 The coat did bag a little, and it was too long in the 
 sleeves, but as Milt studied himself in his room — by 
 placing his small melancholy mirror on the bureau, 
 then on a chair, then on the floor, finally, to get a com- 
 plete view, clear out in the hall — he admitted with 
 stirring delight that he looked "pretty fair in the 
 bloomin' outfit." His clear face, his shining hair, his 
 straight shoulders, seemed to go with the costume. 
 
 He wriggled into his top-coat and marched out of 
 his room, theater-bound, with the well-fed satisfac- 
 tion of a man who is certain that no one is giggling, 
 " Look at the hand-me-downs." His pumps did alter- 
 nately pinch his toes and rub his heels; the trousers 
 cramped his waist; and he suspected that his tie had 
 gone wandering. But he swaggered to the trolley, 
 and sat as one rich and famous and very kind to the 
 Common People, till 
 
 Another man in evening clothes got on the car, and 
 Milt saw that he wore a silk hat, and a white knitted 
 scarf; that he took out and examined a pair of white 
 kid gloves. 
 
 He'd forgotten the hat ! He was wearing his gray 
 felt. He could risk the gloves, but the hat — the 
 " stovepipe " — and the chart had said to wear one 
 — he was ruined 
 
 He turned up the collar of his top-coat to conceal 
 his white tie, tried to hide each of his feet behind the 
 other to cover up his pumps; sought to change his 
 
FREE AIR 325 
 
 expression from that of a superior person in evening 
 clothes to that of a decent fellow in honest Regular 
 Clothes. Had the conductor or any of the passengers 
 realized that he was a dub in a dress-suit without the 
 hat? 
 
 Once he thought that the real person in real eve- 
 ning clothes was looking at him. He turned his head 
 and bore the probable insult in weak misery. 
 
 Too feeble for anything but thick suffering he was 
 dragged on toward the theater, the opera, people in 
 silk hats — toward Jeff Saxton and exposure. 
 
 But his success in bullying the tailor had taught him 
 that dressing wasn't really a hidden lore to be known 
 only by initiates; that some day he too might under- 
 stand the black and white magic of clothes. His 
 bruised self-consciousness healed. " I'll do — some- 
 thing," he determined. He waited, vacuously. 
 
 The Gilson party was not in the lobby when he 
 arrived. He tore off his top-coat. He draped it over 
 his felt hat, so that no one could be sure what sort 
 of hat it shamefully concealed. That unveiling did 
 expose him to the stare of everybody waiting in the 
 lobby. He was convinced that the entire ticket-buying 
 cue was glumly resenting him. Peeping down at the 
 unusual white glare of his shirt-front, he felt naked 
 and indecent. ..." Nice kind o' vest. Must make 
 'em out of old pique collars." 
 
 He endured his martyrdom till his party arrived 
 
326 FREE AIR 
 
 — the Gilsons, Claire, Jeff Saxton, and a glittering 
 young woman whose name, Milt thought, was Mrs. 
 Corey. 
 
 And Saxton wasn't wearing a high hat! He wore 
 a soft one, and he didn't seem to care ! 
 
 Milt straightened up, followed them through the 
 manifold dangers of the lobby, down a perilous aisle 
 of uptilted scornful faces, to a red narrow corridor, 
 winding stairs, a secret passage, a mysterious dark 
 closet — and he walked out into a room with one 
 side missing, and, on that side, ten trillion people in 
 a well, and nine trillion of them staring at him and 
 noticing that he'd rented his dress-suit. Hot about the 
 neck, he stumbled over one or two chairs, and was 
 permitted to rest in a foolish little gilt chair in the 
 farthest corner. 
 
 Once safe, he felt much better. Except that Jeff did 
 put on white kid gloves. Milt couldn't see that they 
 two looked so different. And neither of the two men 
 in the next box wore gloves. Milt made sure of that 
 comfort; he reveled in it; he looked at Claire, and in 
 her loyal smile found ease. 
 
 He snarled, " She trusts you. Forget you're a dub. 
 Try to be human. Hang it, I'm no greener at the 
 opera than old horsehair sofa there would be at a 
 garage." 
 
 There was something What was it he was 
 
 trying to remember ? Oh yes. When he'd worked in 
 
FREE AIR ' 327 
 
 the Schoenstrom flour-mill, as engineer, at eighteen, 
 the owner had tried to torment him (to " get his goat," 
 Milt put it), and Milt had found that the one thing 
 that would save him was to smile as though he knew 
 more than he was telling. It did not, he remembered, 
 make any difference whether or not the smile was 
 real. If he merely looked the miller up and down, and 
 smiled cynically, he was let alone. 
 
 Why not 
 
 Saxton was bending toward him, asking in honeyed 
 respectfulness : 
 
 " Don't you think that the new school in music — 
 audible pointillage, one might call it — mistakes ca- 
 cophony for power ? " 
 
 Milt smiled, paternally. 
 
 Saxton waited for something more. He d\^g the 
 nail of his right middle finger into his thumb, looked 
 thoughtful, and attacked again: 
 
 " Which do you like better : the new Italian music, 
 or the orthodox German ? " 
 
 Milt smiled like two uncles watching a clever baby, 
 and patronized Saxton with, " They both have their 
 points." 
 
 He saw that Claire was angry; but that the Gilsons 
 and Mrs. Corey, flap-eared, gape-mouthed, forward- 
 bending, were very proud of their little Jeff. He saw 
 that, except for their clothes and self-conscious coif- 
 fures, they were exactly like a gang of cracker-box 
 
328 FREE AIR 
 
 loafers at Heinie Rauskukle's badgering a new boy in 
 town. 
 
 Saxton looked bad-tempered. Then Mrs. Corey 
 bustled with her face and yearned at Milt, " Do tell 
 me: what is the theme of the opera tonight. I've 
 rather forgotten." 
 
 Milt ceased to smile. While all of them regarded 
 him with interest he said clearly, " I haven't got the 
 slightest idea. I don't know anything about music. 
 Some day I hope I can get a clever woman like you to 
 help me, Mrs. Corey. It must be great to know all 
 about all these arts, the way you do. I wish you'd 
 explain that — overture they call it, don't they ? " 
 
 For some reason, Mr. Gilson was snickering, Mrs. 
 Corey flushing, Claire looking well pleased. Milt had 
 tried to be insulting, but had got lost in the intricacies 
 of the insult. He felt that he'd better leave it in its 
 apparently safe state, and he leaned back, and smiled 
 again, as though he was waiting. Mrs. Corey did no( 
 explain the overture. She hastily explained her second 
 maid, to Mrs. Gilson. 
 
 The opera was // Amore dei Tre Re. Milt was 
 bewildered. To him, who had never seen an opera, the 
 convention that a girl cannot hear a man who is 
 bellowing ten feet away from her, was absurd; and 
 he wished that the singers would do something be- 
 sides making their arms swim. 
 
 He discovered that by moving his chair forward, he 
 
FREE AIR 329 
 
 could get within a foot of Claire. His hand slipped 
 across, touched hers. She darted a startled backward 
 glance. Her fingers closed tight about his, then rest- 
 lessly snuggled inside his palm — and Milt was lost in 
 enchantment. 
 
 Stately kings of blood-red cloaks and chrysoberyls 
 malevolent in crowns of ancient and massy gold — the 
 quick dismaying roll of drums and the shadow of 
 passing banners below a tower — a woman tall and 
 misty-veiled and pale with dreams — a world of spirit 
 where the soul had power over unseen dominions — 
 this he saw and heard and tasted in the music. What 
 the actual plot was, or the technique of the singing, he 
 did not know, but it bore him beyond all reality save 
 the sweet, sure happiness of Claire's nestling hand. 
 
 He held her fingers so firmly that he could feel the 
 pulse beat in them. 
 
 In the clamminess of his room, when the enchant- 
 ment was gone, he said gravely : 
 
 " How much longer can I keep this up ? Sooner or 
 later I bust loose and smash little Jefif one in the snoot, 
 and he takes the count, and I'm never allowed to see 
 Claire again. Turn the roughneck out on his ear. I 
 s'pose I'm vulgar. I s'pose that fellow Michael in 
 Youth's Encounter wouldn't talk about snoots. I 
 
 don't care, I'll If I poke Saxton one I'm 
 
 not afraid of the kid-glove precinct any more. My 
 
330 FREE AIR 
 
 brain's as good as theirs, give it a chance. But oh, 
 they're all against me. And they bust the Athletic 
 Union's wrestling rule that ' striking, kicking, gouging, 
 hair-pulling, butting, and strangling will not be al- 
 lowed.' How long can I go on being good-natured? 
 When I do break loose " 
 
 Slowly, beneath the moral cuflf of his dress-shirt, 
 Milt's fist closed in a brown, broad-knuckled lump, and 
 came up in the gesture of a right to the jaw. But it 
 came up only a foot. The hand opened, climbed to 
 Milt's face, rubbed his temples, while he sighed: 
 
 " Nope. Can't even do that. Bigger game now. 
 Used to could — used to be able to settle things with 
 a punch. But I've got to be more — oh, more diplo- 
 matic now. Oh Lord, how lonely I get for Bill Mc- 
 Golwey. No. That isn't true. I couldn't stand Bill 
 now. Claire took all that out of me. Where am I, 
 where am I? Why did I ever get a car that takes a 
 36x6?" 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 THE CORNFIELD ARISTOCRAT 
 
 IT was an innocent little note from Jeff Saxton; a 
 polite, humble little note; it said that Jeff had a 
 card to the Astoria Club, and wouldn't Milt please have 
 lunch with him? But Milt dropped it on the table, 
 and he walked round it as though it were a dictagraph 
 which he'd discovered in the table drawer after happy, 
 happy, hidden hours at counterfeiting. 
 
 It seemed more dangerous to refuse than to go. He 
 browned the celebrated new shoes; he pressed the 
 distinguished new trousers, with a light and quite 
 unsatisfactory flatiron ; he re-re-retied his best spotted 
 blue bow — it persisted in having the top flaps too short, 
 but the retying gave him spiritual strength — and he 
 modestly clumped into the aloof brick portal of the 
 Astoria Club on time. 
 
 He had never been in a club before. 
 
 He looked at the red tiled floor of the entrance hall; 
 he stared through the hall into an immense lounge with 
 the largest and softest chairs in the world, with oil 
 portraits of distinguished old bucks, and ninety per 
 cent, of the wealth and power of Seattle pulling its 
 several mustaches, reading the P.I., and ignoring the 
 lone intruder out in the hall. 
 
 331 
 
332 FREE AIR 
 
 A small Zulu in blue tights and brass buttons glared 
 at Milt; and a large, soft, suave, insulting young man 
 demanded, "Yes, sir?" 
 
 " Mr. G-g-geoffrey Saxton ? " ventured Milt. 
 
 " Not in, sir." The " sir " sounded like " And you 
 know it." The flaming guardian retired behind a nar- 
 row section of a bookkeeper's desk and ignored him. 
 
 " I'm to meet him for lunch," Milt forlornly per- 
 sisted. 
 
 The young man looked up, hurt and annoyed at 
 finding that the person was still to be dealt with. 
 
 " If you will wait in there? " he groaned. 
 
 Milt sat in there, which was a small blue tapestry 
 room with hard chairs intended to discourage bill- 
 collectors. He turned his hat round and round and 
 round, till he saw Jeff Saxton, slim and straight and 
 hard as the stick hooked over his arm, sailing into 
 the hall. He plunged out after him, took refuge with 
 him from the still unconvinced inspection of the hall- 
 man. For twenty seconds, he loved Jeff Saxton. 
 
 And Jeff seemed to adore him in turn. He solicit- 
 ously led Milt to the hat-checking counter. He 
 showed Milt the lounge and the billiard room, through 
 which Milt crept with erect shoulders and easy eyes 
 and a heart simply paralyzed with fear that one of 
 these grizzled clubmen with clipped mustaches would 
 look at him. He coaxed Milt into a grill that was a 
 cross between the Chinese throne-room and a Viennese 
 
FREE AIR 333 
 
 Weinstube, and he implored his friend Milt to do him 
 the favor of trying the " very fair " English mutton 
 chops and potatoes au gratin. 
 
 " I did want to see you again before we go East, 
 Daggett," he said pleasantly. 
 
 " Th-thanks. When do you go? " 
 
 "I'm trying to get Miss Boltwood to start soon 
 now. The season is opening in the East. She does like 
 your fine sturdy West, as I do, but still, when we 
 think of the exciting new shows opening, and the 
 
 dances, and the touch with the great world Oh, 
 
 it does make one eager to get back." 
 
 " That's so," risked Milt. 
 
 " We, uh Daggett In fact, I'm going 
 
 to call you Milt, as Claire does. You don't know what 
 a pleasure it has been to have encountered you. 
 There's a fine keen courage about you Western chaps 
 that makes a cautious old fogy like me envious. I 
 shall remember meeting you with a great deal of 
 pleasure." 
 
 "Th-thanks. Been pleasure meet you." 
 
 " And I know Claire will, too." 
 
 Milt felt that he was being dealt with foully. He 
 wanted to object to Saxton's acting as agent for Claire 
 as incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, and no founda- 
 tion laid. But he could not see just where he was 
 being led, and with Saxton glowing at him as warmly 
 and greasily as the mutton chops, Milt could only smile 
 
334 FREE AIR 
 
 wanly, and reflectively feel the table leg to see if it 
 was loose enough to jerk out in case of need. 
 
 Saxton was being optimistic : 
 
 " In fact, Claire and I both hope that some day when 
 you've finished your engineering course, we'll see you 
 
 in the East. I wonder As I say, my dear fellow, 
 
 I've taken the greatest fancy to you, and I do hope 
 you won't think I'm too intimate if I say that I 
 imagine that even in your charming friendship with 
 Miss Boltwood, you've probably never learned what 
 important people the Boltwoods are. I thought I'd tell 
 you so that you could realize the privilege both you 
 and I have in knowing them. Henry B. is — while not 
 a man of any enormous wealth — regarded as one of 
 the keenest intellects in New York wholesale circles. 
 But beyond that, he is a scholar, and a man of the 
 broadest interests. Of course the Boltwoods are too 
 modest to speak of it, but he was chiefly instrumental 
 in the establishment of the famous Brooklyn Sym- 
 phony Orchestra. And his ancestors clear through 
 — his father was a federal judge, and his mother's 
 brother was a general in the Civil War, and after- 
 wards an ambassador. So you can guess something 
 of the position Claire holds in that fine, quiet, solid 
 old Brooklyn set. Henry Ward Beecher himself was 
 complimented at being asked to dine with the Bolt- 
 woods of his day, and " 
 
 No, the table leg wouldn't come loose, so it was 
 
FREE AIR 335 
 
 ■only verbally that the suddenly recovered Milt at- 
 tacked : 
 
 " Certainly is nice to have one of those old families. 
 
 It's something like As you say, you and I have 
 
 gotten pretty well acquainted along the line, so I guess 
 
 I can say it to you My father and his folks came 
 
 from that same kind of family. Father's dad was a 
 judge, back in Maine, and in the war, grand-dad was 
 quite friendly with Grant." 
 
 This tribute of Milt to his grandsire was loyal but 
 inaccurate. Judge Daggett, who wasn't a judge at all, 
 but a J. P., had seen General Grant only once, and at 
 the time the judge had been in company with all the 
 other privates in the Fourteenth Maine. 
 
 " Dad was a pioneer. He was a doctor. He had to 
 give up all this easy-going stuff in order to help open 
 up the West to civilization, but I guess it was worth 
 it. He used to do the hardest kind of operations, on 
 kitchen tables, with his driver giving the chloroform. 
 I'm mighty proud of him. As you say, it's kind of 
 what you might call inspiring to belong to the old 
 Pilgrim aristocracy." 
 
 Never before had Milt claimed relation to a group 
 regarding which his only knowledge was the informa- 
 tion derived from the red school-history to the effect 
 that they all carried blunderbusses, put people in the 
 stocks for whistling, and frequently said, " Why don't 
 _you speak for yourself, John? " But he had made his 
 
336 FREE AIR 
 
 boast with a clear eye and a pleasant; superior, calm 
 smile. 
 
 " Oh ! Very interesting," grunted Saxton. 
 
 " Would you like to see grandfather's daguerreo- 
 type?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes, uh, thanks, that would be very in- 
 teresting Do let me see it, when Uh, as I 
 
 was saying, Claire doubtless has a tremendous social 
 career before heir. So many people expecting her to 
 marry well. Of course she has a rather unusual com- 
 bination of charm and intelligence and In fact I 
 
 think we may both be glad that " 
 
 " Yes. That's right. And the best thing about her 
 is the way she can shake off all the social stuff and go 
 camping and be a regular human being," Milt 
 caressed. 
 
 " Um, uh, no doubt, no doubt, though Of 
 
 course, though, that isn't an inherent part of her. I 
 fancy she's been rather tired by this long trip, poor 
 child. Of course she isn't very strong." 
 
 " That's right. Real pluck. And of course she'll 
 get stronger by hiking. You've never seen her buck- 
 ing a dangerous hill — I kind of feel that a person 
 who hasn't seen her in the wilds doesn't know 
 her." 
 
 " I don't want to be contradictory, old man, but I 
 feel on the other hand that no one who has failed to 
 see her at the Junior League Dances, in a Poiret 
 
FREE AIR 337 
 
 frock, can know her ! Cprae, come ! Don't know how 
 we drifted into this chorus of praise of Claire! What 
 I wanted to ask was your opinion of the Fierce- 
 Arrow. I'm thinking of buying one. Do you think 
 that " 
 
 All the way home Milt exulted, " I put it all over 
 him. I wasn't scared by the 'Don't butt into the 
 aristocracy, my young friend ' stuff. I lied handsome. 
 
 But Darn it, now I'll have to live up to my 
 
 New England aristocracy. . . . Wonder if my grand- 
 dad's dad was a hired man or a wood-sawyer? . . . 
 Ne' mine; I'm Daggett of Daggett from now on." He 
 bounded up to his room vaingloriously remarking, 
 " I'm there with the ancestors. I was brought up in 
 the handsome city of Schoenstrom, which was founded 
 by a colony of Vermont Yankees, headed by Herman 
 Skumautz. I was never allowed to play with the 
 
 Dutch kids, and " He opened the door. " — the 
 
 Schoenstrom minister taught me Greek and was my 
 bosom frien'- " 
 
 He stopped with his heart in his ankles. Lolling 
 on the bed, grinning, waving a cigarette, was Bill 
 McGolwey, proprietor of the Old Home Lunch, of 
 Schoenstrom, Minnesota. 
 
 " Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwhy 
 where the heck did you come from ? " stammered the 
 deposed aristocrat to his bosom friend Bill. 
 
 " You old lemon-pie- faced, loUygagging, flap-footed, 
 
338 FREE AIR 
 
 crab-nosed son of misery, gee, but it's good to see you. 
 Milt!" 
 
 Bill was off the bed, wringing Milt's hand with 
 simple joy, with perfect faith that in finding his friend 
 all the troubles of life were over. And Milt was 
 gloomily discovering the art of diplomacy. Bill was 
 his friend, yes, but 
 
 It was hard enough to carry his own self. 
 
 He pictured Jeff Saxton leering at the door, and 
 while he pounded Bill's shoulder, and called him the 
 name which, west of Chicago, is the token of hatred 
 and of extreme gladness at meeting, he discovered that 
 some one had stolen his stomach and left a piece of 
 ice in its place. 
 
 They settled down on bed and chair. Bill's ears red 
 with joy, while Milt demanded: 
 
 " How the deuce did you get here ? " 
 
 " Well, tell you, old hoss. Schoenstrom got so darn 
 lonely after you left, and when Ben and Heinie got 
 your address and bought the garage, think's I, lez go 
 ofif on a little bum." 
 
 Milt was realizing — and hating himself for realiz- 
 ing — that Bill's face was dirty, his hair linty, the bot- 
 toms of his trousers frayed masses of mud, wliile Bill 
 chuckled : 
 
 "I figured out maybe I could get a job here in a 
 restaurant, and you and me could room together. I 
 sold out my good will in the Old Home Lunch for a 
 
FREE AIR 339 
 
 hundred bucks. I was going to travel swell, riding the 
 cushions. But Pete Swanson wanted me to go down 
 to the Cities first, and we run into some pretty swift 
 travelers in Minneapolis, and a couple of girls — 
 saaaaaaay, kid, some class ! " 
 
 Bill winked, and Milt — Milt was rather sick. He 
 knew Bill's conception of class in young women. Was 
 this the fellow he had liked so well? These the ideas 
 which a few months ago he had taken as natural and 
 extremely amusing? 
 
 " And I got held up in an alley off Washington 
 Avenue, and they got the last twenty bones off'n me, 
 and I was flatter 'n a pancake. So I says 'ish 
 kabibble,' and I sneaks onto the blind baggage, and 
 bums my way West. You'd 'a' died laughing to seen 
 me throwing my feet for grub. Oh, I'm some pan- 
 handler ! There was one Frau sicked her dog onto me, 
 
 and I kicked him in the jaw and Oh, it was one 
 
 swell hike." 
 
 Milt was trying to ignore the voice that was raging, 
 "And now he expects to' live on me, after throwing 
 his own money away. The waster ! The hobo ! He'll 
 
 expect to meet Claire I'd kill him before I'd 
 
 let him soil her by looking at her. Him and his classy 
 girls! " Milt tried to hear only the other inner voice, 
 which informed him, " He looks at you so trustingly. 
 He'd give you his shirt, if you needed it — and he 
 wouldn't make you ask for it ! " 
 
340 FREE AIR 
 
 Milt tried to be hearty : " What're you going to do, 
 old kid?" 
 
 " Well, the first thing I'm going to do is to borrow 
 ten iron-men and a pair of pants." 
 
 "You bet! Here she is. Haven't got any extra 
 pants. Tell you: Here's another five, and you can 
 get the pants at the store in the next block, this side 
 of the street. Hustle along now and get 'em ! " He 
 chuckled at Bill; he patted his arm; he sought to hurry 
 him out. ... He had to be alone, to think. 
 
 But Bill kissed the fifteen dollars, carelessly rammed 
 it into his pocket, crawled back on the bed, yawned, 
 "What's the rush? Gosh, I'm sleepy. Say, Milt, 
 whadyuh think of me and you starting a lunch-room 
 here together? You got enough money out of the 
 garage " 
 
 " Oh no, noooo, gee, I'd like to. Bill, but you see, 
 well, I've got to hold onto what little I've got so I can 
 get through engineering school." 
 
 " Sure, but you could cash in on a restaurant — ^you 
 could work evenings in the dump, and there'd be a lot 
 of city sports hanging around, and we'd have the time 
 of our lives." 
 
 " No, I I study, evenings. And I- The 
 
 fact is. Bill, I've met a lot of nice fellows at the uni- 
 versity and I kind of go around with them." 
 
 "Aw, how d'you get that way? Rats, you don't 
 want to go tagging after them Willy-boys. Damn 
 
FREE AIR 341 
 
 dirty snobs. And the girls are worse. I tell you, 
 Milt, these hoop-te-doodle society Janes may look all 
 right to hicks like us, but on the side they raise more 
 hell than any milliner's trimmer from Chi that ever 
 vamped a rube burg." 
 
 "What do you know about them?" 
 
 " Now don't get sore. I'm telling you. I don't like 
 to see any friend of mine make a fool of himself hang- 
 ing around with a bunch that despises him because he 
 ain't rich, that's all. Met any of the high-toned 
 skirts?" 
 
 "Yes— I— have!" 
 
 " Trot 'em up and lemme give 'em the once-over." 
 
 " We — we'll see about it. Now I got to go to a 
 mathematics recitation, Bill. You make yourself com- 
 fortable, and I'll be back at five." 
 
 Milt did not have to go to a recitation. He marched 
 out with briskness in his step, and a book under his 
 arm; but when he reached the corner, the briskness 
 proved to be spurious, and the mathematics book 
 proved to be William Rose Benet's Merchants of 
 Cathay, which Claire had given him in the Yellow- 
 stone, and which he had rescued from the wrecked 
 bug. 
 
 He stood staring at it. He opened it with unhappy 
 tenderness. He had been snatched from the world of 
 beautiful words and serene dignity, of soaring moun- 
 tains and companionship with Claire in the radiant 
 
342 FREE AIR 
 
 morning, back to the mud and dust of Schoenstrom, 
 from the opera to "city sports" in a lunch-room! 
 He hated Bill McGolwey and his sneering assump- 
 tion that Milt belonged in the filth with him. And 
 he hated himself for not being enough of a genius to 
 combine Bill McGolwey and Claire Boltwood. But 
 not once, in his maelstrom of worry on that street 
 corner, did he expect Claire to like Bill. Through all 
 his youthful agonizing, he had enough common sense 
 to know that though Claire- might conquer a mountain 
 pass, she could never be equal to the social demands 
 of Schoenstrom and Bill McGolwey. 
 
 He wandered for an hour and came back to find 
 that, in a " dry " city which he had never seen before, 
 the crafty Bill had obtained a quart of Bourbon, and 
 was in a state of unsteady beatitude. He wanted, he 
 announced, to dance. 
 
 Milt got him into the community bathtub, and 
 soused him under, but Bill's wet body was slippery, 
 and Bill's merry soul was all for frohcsome gambol- 
 ing, and he slid out of Milt's grasp, he sloshed around 
 in the tub, he sprinkled Milt's sacred good suit with 
 soapy water, and escaped, and in the costume of 
 Adam he danced orientally in Milt's room, till he was 
 seized with sleepiness and cosmic grief, and retired to 
 Milt's bed in tears and nothing else. 
 
 The room dimmed, grew dark. The street lamps 
 outside sent a wan, wavery gleam into the room. 
 
FREE AIR 343 
 
 Evening crowds went by, and in a motion-picture 
 theater a banging piano struck up. Bill breathed in 
 choking snorts. Milt sat unmoving, feeling very old, 
 very tired, too dumbly unhappy to be frightened of 
 the dreadful coming hour when Claire and Jeflf should 
 hear of Bill, and discover Milt's real world. 
 
 He was not so romantically loyal, not so inhumanly 
 heroic, that it can truthfully be reported that he never 
 thought of getting rid of Bill. He did think of it, 
 again and again. But always he was touched by Bill's 
 unsuspecting trust, and shook his head, and sank again 
 into the fog. 
 
 What was the use of trying to go ahead? Wasn't 
 he, after all, merely a Bill McGolwey himself? 
 
 If he was, he wouldn't inflict himself on Claire. 
 
 For several minutes he gave up forever the zest of 
 climbing. 
 
 When Bill awoke, brightly solicitous about the rest 
 of the quart of Bourbon, and bouncingly ready to " go 
 out and have a time," Milt loafed about the streets 
 with him, showing him the city. He dully cut his 
 classes, next morning, and took Bill to the wharves. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon, when they were loung- 
 ing in the room, and Bill was admiring his new pants 
 — he boasted of having bought them for three dollars, 
 and pointed out that Milt had been a "galoot" to 
 spend ten dollars for shoes — that some one knocked 
 at the door. Sleepily expectant of his landlady. Milt 
 
344 FREE AIR 
 
 opened it on Miss Claire Boltwood, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Eugene Gilson, and Mr. Geoffrey Saxton. 
 
 Saxton calmly looked past him, at Bill, smiled 
 slightly, and condescended, " I thought we ought to 
 call on you, so we've dropped in to beg for tea." 
 
 Bill had stopped midway in scratching his head to 
 gape at Claire. Claire returned the look, stared at 
 Bill's frowsy hair, his red wrists, his wrinkled, grease- 
 stained coat, his expression of impertinent stupidity. 
 Then she glanced questioningly at Milt, who choked: 
 
 " Oh yes, yes, sure, glad see you, come in, get some 
 tea, so glad see you, come in " 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 TOOTH-MUG TEA 
 
 "TV yf" Y friend Mr. McGolwey — I knew him in 
 i.T A Schoenstrom — come on to Seattle for a while. 
 Bill, these are some people I met along the road," Milt 
 grumbled. 
 
 " Glad to meet 'em. Have a chair. Have two 
 chairs! Say, Milt, y'ought to have more chairs if 
 you're going to have a bunch of swells coming to call 
 on you. Ha, ha, ha! Say, I guess I better pike out 
 and give the folks a chance to chin with you," Bill 
 fondly offered. 
 
 " Oh, sit down," Milt snapped at him. 
 
 They all sat down, four on the bed ; and Milt's inner 
 ear heard a mute snicker from the Gilsons and Sax- 
 ton. He tried to talk. He couldn't. Bill looked at 
 him and, perceiving the dumbness, gallantly helped 
 out: 
 
 " So you met the kid on the road, eh? Good scout. 
 Milt is. We always used to say at Schoenstrom that 
 he was the best darn hand at fixing a flivver in seven 
 townships." 
 
 " So you knew Mr. Daggett at home ? Now isn't 
 that nice," said Mrs. Gilson. 
 
 "Knew him? Saaaaay, Milt and I was brung up 
 
 345 
 
346 FREE AIR 
 
 together. Why, him and I have bummed around to- 
 gether, and worked on farms, summers, and fished for 
 
 bull-heads Ever catch a bull-head? Damnedest 
 
 slipperiest fish you ever saw, and got horns that sting 
 
 the stuffin's out of you and Say, I wonder if 
 
 Milt's told you about the time we had at a barn- 
 dance once ? There was a bunch of hicks there, and I 
 says, ' Say, kid, lez puncture their tires, and hide back 
 of the manure pile, and watch the fun when they come 
 out.' I guess maybe I was kind of stewed a little, tell 
 the truth, but course Milt he don't drink much, hardly 
 at all, nice straight kid if I do say so " 
 
 " Bill ! " Milt ordered. " We must have some tea. 
 Here's six-bits. You run down to the comer grocery 
 and get some tea and a little cream. Oh, you better 
 buy three-four cups, too. Hustle now, son ! " 
 
 " Attaboy ! Yours to command, ladies and gents, 
 like the fellow says ! " Bill boomed delightedly. He 
 winked at Jeff Saxton, airily spun his broken hat on 
 his dirty forefinger, and sauntered out. 
 
 " Charming fellow. A real original," crooned Mrs. 
 Gilson. 
 
 " Did he know your friend Mr. Pinky ? " asked 
 Saxton. 
 
 Before Milt could answer, Claire rose from the 
 bed, inspected the Gilsons and Jeff with cold dislike, 
 and said quietly to Milt, " The poor dear thing — ^he 
 was dreadfully embarrassed. It's so good of you to 
 
FREE AIR 347 
 
 be nice to him. I believe in being loyal to your old 
 friends." 
 
 "Oh, so do I!" babbled Mrs. Gilson. "It's just 
 too splendid. And we must do something for him. 
 I'm going to invite Mr. Daggett and Mr. — Mr. McGol- 
 lups, was it? — to dinner this evening. I do want to 
 hear him tell about your boyhood. It must have been 
 so interesting." 
 
 " It was," mused Milt. " It was poor and misera- 
 ble. We had to work hard — we had to fight for what- 
 ever education we got — we had no one to teach us 
 courtesy." 
 
 " Oh now, with your fine old doctor father? Surely 
 he was an inspiration? " Jeff didn't, this time, trouble 
 to hide the sneer. 
 
 " Yes. He was. He gave up the chance to be a 
 rich loafer in order to save farmers' babies for fees 
 that he never got." 
 
 " I'm sure he did. I wish I'd known him. We 
 need to know men like that in this pink-frosting play- 
 ing at living we have in cities," Claire said sweetly — 
 not to Milt but to Jeff. 
 
 Mrs. Gilson had ignored them, waiting with the 
 patience of a cat at a mouse-hole, and she went on, 
 " But you haven't said you'd come, this evening. 
 Do say you will. I don't suppose Mr. McGollups will 
 care to dress for dinner ? " 
 
 With saccharin devotion Milt yearned back, " No, 
 
348 FREE AIR 
 
 Mrs. Gilson. No. Mr. McGolwey won't care to 
 dress. He's eccentric." 
 
 "But you'll make him come?" 
 
 Milt was tactfully beginning to refuse when Gene 
 Gilson at last exploded, turned purple, covered his drip- 
 ping, too-red lips with his handkerchief. 
 
 Then, abruptly, Milt hurled at Mrs. Gilson, "All 
 right. We'll come. Bill'll be awfully funny. He's 
 never been out of a jerkwater burg in his life, hardly. 
 He's an amusing cuss. He thinks I'm smart! He 
 loves me like a dog. Oh, he's rich! Ha, ha, ha! " 
 
 Milt might have gone on . . . if he had, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Gilson would have gone away, much displeased. 
 But Bill arrived, with some of the worst tea in the 
 world, and four cups tastefully done in cupids' heads 
 and much gilt. 
 
 Milt made tea, ignoring them, while Bill entertained 
 the Gilsons and Saxtons with Rabelaisian stories of 
 threshing-time when shirts prickly with chaff and 
 gritty with dust stuck to sweat-dripping backs; of the 
 " funny thing " of Milt and Bill being hired to move 
 a garbage-pile and " swiping " their employer's 
 " mushmelons " ; of knotting shirts at the swimming- 
 hole so that the bawling youngsters had to " chaw 
 beef "; of drinking beer in the livery-stable at Melrose; 
 of dropping the water-pitcher from a St. Klopstock 
 hotel window upon the head of the " constabule " and 
 escaping from him across the lean-to roof. 
 
FREE AIR 349 
 
 Mrs. Gilson encouraged him; Bill sat with almost 
 closed eyes, glorying in the saga of small-town life; 
 Saxton and Gilson did not conceal their contemptuous 
 grins. 
 
 But Claire After nervously rubbing the tips of 
 
 her thumbs with flickering agitated fingers, she had 
 paid no attention to Bill and the revelation of Milt's 
 rustic life; she had quietly gone to Milt, to help him 
 prepare the scanty tea. 
 
 She whispered, " Never mind, dear. I don't care. 
 It was all twice as much fun as being wheeled in lacy 
 prams by cranky nurses, as Jeff and I were. But I 
 know how you feel. Are you ashamed of having been 
 a prairie pirate ? " 
 
 " No, I'm not ! We were wild kids — ^we raised a lot 
 of Cain — ^but I'm glad we did." 
 
 " So am I. I couldn't stand it if you were ashamed. 
 Listen to me, and remember little Claire's words of 
 wisdom. These fools are trying — oh, they're so ob- 
 vious! — they're trying to make me feel that the prim 
 Miss Boltwood of Brooklyn Heights is a stranger to 
 you. Well, they're succeeding in making me a 
 stranger — to them ! " 
 
 " Claire ! Dear ! You don't mind Bill ? " 
 
 " Yes. I do. And so do you. You've grown away 
 from him." 
 
 " I don't know but Today has been quite a 
 
 test." 
 
350 FREE AIR 
 
 " Yes. It has. Because if I can stand your friend 
 Mr. McGolwey " 
 
 " Then you do care ! " 
 
 " Perhaps. And if I think that he's, oh, not much 
 good, and I remember that for a long time you just 
 had him to play with, then I'm all the more anxious 
 to make it up to you." 
 
 " Don't be sorry for me ! I can't stand that ! After 
 all, it was a good town, and good folks " 
 
 " No ! No ! I'm not sorry for you ! I just mean, 
 you couldn't have had so terribly much fun, after you 
 were eighteen or so. Schoenstrom must have been 
 a little dull, after very many years there. This stuff 
 about the charm of backwoods villages — the people 
 that write it seem to take jolly good care to stay in 
 Long Island suburbs!" 
 
 "Claire!" He was whispering desperately, "The 
 tea's most done. Oh, my dear. I'm crazy with this 
 puttering around, trying to woo you and having to 
 woo the entire Gilson tribe. Let's run away! " 
 
 " No ; first I'm going to convince them that you 
 are' — what I know you are." 
 
 " But you can't." 
 
 " Huh ! You wait ! I've thought of the most beauti- 
 ful, beastly cruel plan for the reduction of social 
 obesity " 
 
 Then she was jauntily announcing, " Tea, my dears. 
 Jeff, you get the tooth-mug. Isn't this jolly! " 
 
FREE AIR 351 
 
 "Yes. Oh yes. Very jolly!" Jeff was thoroughly 
 patronizing, but she didn't look offended. She made 
 them drink the acid tea, and taste the chalk-like bread 
 and butter sandwiches. She coaxed Bill to go on 
 with his stories, and when the persistent Mrs. Gilson 
 again asked the pariahs to come to dinner, Claire 
 astonished Milt, and still more astonished Mrs. Gilson, 
 by begging, " Oh yes, please do come, Milt." 
 
 He consented, savagely. 
 
 " But first," Claire added to Mrs. Gilson, " I want 
 
 us to take the boys to Oh, I have the buUiest 
 
 idea. Come, everybody. We're going riding." 
 
 "Uh, where ?" hinted Mr. Gilson. 
 
 " That's my secret. Come ! " 
 
 Claire pranced to the door, herded all of them down 
 to the limousine, whispered an address to the chauffeur. 
 
 Milt didn't care much for that ride. Bill was some- 
 what too evidently not accustomed to limousines. He 
 wiped his shoes, caked with red mud, upon the seat- 
 cushions, and apologized perspiringly. He said, " Gee 
 whillikens, that's a dandy idee, telephone to bawl the 
 shuffer out with," and " Are them flowers real, the 
 bokay in the vase ? " 
 
 But the Gilsons and Jeff Saxton were happy about 
 it all — till the car turned from a main thoroughfare 
 upon a muddy street of shacks that clung like goats to 
 the sides of a high cut, a street unchanged from the 
 pioneer days of Seattle. 
 
352 FREE AIR 
 
 " Good heavens, Claire, you aren't taking us to see 
 Aunt Hatty, are you?" wailed Mrs. Gilson. 
 
 " Oh yes, indeed. I knew the boys would like to 
 meet her." 
 
 " No, really, I don't think " 
 
 " Eva, my soul, Jeff and you planned our tea- 
 party today, and assured me I'd be so interested in 
 
 Milt's bachelor apartment By the way, I'd\been 
 
 up there already, so it wasn't entirely a surprise. It's 
 my turn to lead." She confided to Milt, "Dear old 
 Aunt Hatty is related .to all of us. She's Gene's aunt, 
 and my fourth cousin, and I think she's distantly re- 
 lated to Jeff. She came West early, and had a hard 
 time, but she's real Brooklyn Heights — and she be- 
 longs to Gramercy Park and North Washington 
 Square and Rittenhouse Square and Back Bay, too, 
 though she has got out of touch a little. So I wanted 
 you to meet her." 
 
 Milt wondered what unperceived bag of cement had 
 hardened the faces of Saxton and the Gilsons. 
 
 Silent save for polite observations of Claire upon 
 tight skirts and lumbering, the merry company reached 
 the foot of a lurching flight of steps that scrambled up 
 a clay bank to a cottage like a hen that has set too long. 
 Milt noticed that Mrs. Gilson made efforts to remain 
 in the limousine when it stopped, and he caught Gil- 
 son's mutter to his wife, " No, it's Claire's turn. Be 
 a sport, Eva." 
 
FREE AIR 353 
 
 Claire led them up the badly listed steps to an un- 
 painted porch on which sat a little old lady, very neat, 
 very respectable, very interested, and reflectively hold- 
 ing in one ivory hand a dainty handkerchief and a 
 black clay pipe. 
 
 " Hello, Claire, my dear. You've broken the rela- 
 tives' record — you've called twice in less than a year," 
 said the little old lady. 
 
 " How do you do. Aunt Harriet," remarked Mrs. 
 Gilson, with great lack of warmth. 
 
 " Hello, Eva. Sit down on the edge of the porch. 
 Those chickens have made it awful dirty, though, 
 haven't they? Bring out some chairs. There's two 
 chairs that don't go down under you — often." Aunt 
 Harriet was very cheerful. 
 
 The group lugubriously settled in a circle upon an 
 assemblage of wind-broken red velvet chairs and 
 wooden stools. They resembled the aftermath of a 
 funeral on a damp, day. 
 
 Claire was the cheerful undertaker, Mrs. Gilson the 
 grief-stricken widow. 
 
 Claire waved at Milt and conversed with Aunt Hatty 
 in a high brisk voice : " This is the nice boy I met 
 on the road that I think I told you about. Cousin 
 Hatty." 
 
 The little old lady screwed up the delicate skin 
 about her eyes, examined Milt, and cackled, " Boy, 
 there's something wrong here. You don't belong with 
 
354 FREE AIR 
 
 my family. Why, you look like an Ataerican. You 
 haven't got an imitation monocle, and I bet you can't 
 talk with a New York-London accent. Why, Claire, 
 I'm ashamed of you for bringing a human being into 
 the Boltwood-Gilson-Saxton tomb and expecting " 
 
 Then was the smile of Mrs. Gilson lost forever. 
 It was simultaneously torpedoed, mined, scuttled, and 
 bombed. It went to the bottom without a ripple, while 
 Mrs. Gilson snapped, "Aunt Hatty, please don't be 
 vulgar." 
 
 " Me ? " croaked the little old lady. She puffed at 
 her pipe, and dropped her elbows on her knees. " My, 
 ain't it hard to please some folks." 
 
 " Cousin Hatty, I want Milt to know about our 
 families. I love the dear old stories," Claire begged 
 prettily. 
 
 Mrs. Gilson snarled. "Claire, really " 
 
 "Oh, do shut up, Eva, and don't be so bossy!" 
 yelped the dear little old lady, in sudden and dismay- 
 ing rage. " I'll talk if I want to. Have they been 
 bullying you, Claire ? Or your boy ? I tell you, boy, 
 these families are fierce. I was brought up in 
 Brooklyn — went through all the schools — used to be 
 able to misplay the piano and mispronounce French 
 with the best of 'em. Then Gene's pa and I came 
 West together — he had an idea he'd get rich robbing 
 the Injuns of their land. And we went broke. I took 
 in washing. I learned a lot. I learned a Gilson was 
 
FREE AIR 355 
 
 just the same common stuff as a red-shirt miner, when 
 he was up against it. But Gene's pa succeeded — there 
 was something about practically stealing a fur schooner 
 — but I never was one to tattle on my kin. Anyway, 
 by the time Gene come along, his pa was rich, and that 
 means aristocratic. 
 
 " This aristocracy west of Pittsburgh is just twice 
 as bad as the snobbery in Boston or New York, be- 
 cause back there, the families have had their wealth 
 long enough — some of 'em got it by stealing real 
 estate in 1820, and some by selling Jamaica rum and 
 niggers way back before the Revolutionary War — 
 they've been respectable so long that they know mighty 
 well and good that nobody except a Britisher is going 
 to question their blue blood — and oh my, what good 
 blueing third-generation money does make. But out 
 here in God's Country, the marquises of milling and 
 the barons of beef are still uneasy. Even their pretty 
 women, after going to the best hair-dressers and 
 patronizing the best charities, sometimes get scared 
 lest somebody think they haven't either brains or 
 breeding. 
 
 " So they're nasty to all low pussons like you and 
 me, to make sure we understand how important they 
 are. But lands, I know 'em, boy. I'm kept pensioned 
 up here, out of the way, but I read the social notes in 
 the papers and I chuckle When there's a big re- 
 ception and I read about Mrs. Vogeland's pearls, and 
 
356 FREE AIR 
 
 her beautiful daughter-in-law, I remember how she 
 used to run a boarding-house for miners 
 
 " Well, I guess it's just as shoddy in the East if you 
 go far enough back. Claire, you're a nice comforting 
 body, and I hate to say it, but the truth is, your 
 great-grandfather was an hostler, and made his first 
 money betting on horses. Now, my, I oughtn't to tell 
 that. Do you mind, dearie ? " 
 
 " Not a bit. Isn't it delightful that this is such a 
 democratic country, with no castes," said Claire. 
 
 At this, the first break in the little old lady's un- 
 dammable flood, Mrs. Gilson sprang up, yammering, 
 " The rest of you may stay as long as you like, but 
 if I'm to be home in time to dress for dinner " 
 
 " Yes, and I must be going," babbled Saxton. 
 
 Milt noted that his lower lip showed white tooth- 
 marks. 
 
 It must be admitted that all of them rather ignored 
 the little old lady for a moment. Milt was apologetic- 
 ally hinting, "I don't really think Bill and I'd better 
 come to dinner this evening, Mrs. Gilson. Thanks a 
 lot but It's kind of sudden." 
 
 Claire again took charge. " Not at all, Milt. Of 
 course you're coming. It was Eva herself who in- 
 vited you. I'm sure she'll be delighted." 
 
 " Charmed," said Mrs. Gilson, with the expression 
 of one who has swallowed castor oil and doubts the 
 unity of the universe. 
 
FREE AIR 357 
 
 There was a lack of ease about the farewells to Aunt 
 Harriet. As they all turned away she beckoned Milt 
 and murmured, " Did I raise the dickens ? I tried to. 
 It's the only solace besides smoking that a moral old 
 lady can allow herself, after she gets to be eighty-two 
 and begins to doubt everything they used to teach her. 
 Come and see me, boy. Now get out, and, boy, beat 
 up Gene Gilson. Don't be scared of his wife's hoity- 
 toity ways. Just sail in." 
 
 " I will," said Milt. 
 
 He had one more surprise before he reached the 
 limousine. 
 
 Bill McGolwey, who had sat listening to everything 
 and scratching his cheek in a puzzled way, seized Milt's 
 sleeve and rumbled: 
 
 " Good-by, old hoss. I'm not going to butt in on 
 your game and get you in Dutch. Gosh, I never sup- 
 posed you had enough class to mingle with elittys like 
 this gang, but I know when I'm in wrong. You were 
 too darn decent to kick me out. Do it myself. You're 
 
 best friend I ever had and Good luck, old man ! 
 
 God bless you ! " 
 
 Bill was gone, running, stumbling, fleeing past Aunt 
 Harriet's cottage, off into a sandy hilltop vacancy. 
 The last Milt saw of him was when, on the skyline. 
 Bill stopped for a glance back, and seemed to be dig- 
 ging his knuckles into his eyes. 
 
 Then Milt turned resolutely, marched down the 
 
3j3 free air 
 
 stairs, said to his hosts with a curious quietness, 
 " Thank you for asking me to dinner, but I'm afraid 
 I can't come. Claire, will you walk a few blocks with 
 me?" 
 
 During the half minute it had taken to descend the 
 steps, Milt had reflected, with an intensity which 
 forgot Bill, that he had been selfish; that he had 
 thought only of the opinion of these " nice people " 
 regarding himself, instead of understanding that it 
 was his duty to save Claire from their enervating 
 niceness. Not that he phrased it quite in this way. 
 What he had been muttering was : 
 
 " Rotten shame — me so scared of folks' clothes that 
 I don't stand up to 'em and keep 'em from smothering 
 Claire. Lord, it would be awful if she settled down to 
 being a Mrs. Jeff Saxton. Got to save her — not for 
 myself — for her." 
 
 It may have been Aunt Harriet, it may have been 
 Milt's resolution, but Mrs. Gilson answered almost 
 
 meekly, " Well, if you think Would you like to 
 
 walk, Claire?" 
 
 As he tramped ofJ with Claire, Milt demanded, 
 " Glad to escape ? " 
 
 "Yes, and I'm glad you refused dinner. It really 
 has been wearing, this trial by food." 
 
 " This is the last time I'll dare to meet the Gilsbns." 
 
 " And I'll have to be going back East. I hope the 
 Gilsons will forgive me, some day." 
 
FREE AIR 359 
 
 " I'm afraid you didn't win them over by Aunt 
 Hatty!" 
 
 " No. They're probably of? me for hfe. Oh, these 
 horrible social complications — worse than any real 
 danger — fire or earthquake " 
 
 " Oh, these complications — they don't exist ! We 
 just make 'em, like we make rules for a card game. 
 What the deuce do we care about the opinions of people 
 we don't like? And who appointed these people to a 
 fixed social position ? Did the president make Saxton 
 High Cockalorum of Dress-Suits or something? 
 Why, these are just folks, the same as kings and coal- 
 heavers. There's no army we've got to fight. There's 
 just you and me — you and I — and if we stick together, 
 then we have all society, we are all society!" 
 
 " Ye-es, but. Milt dear, I don't want to be an out- 
 cast." 
 
 " You won't be. In the long run, if you don't take 
 these aristocrats seriously, they'll be all the more im- 
 pressed by you." 
 
 " No. That sounds cheering, in stories and these 
 optimistic editorials in the magazines, but it isn't true. 
 And you don't know how pleasant it is to be In. I've 
 always been more or less on the inside, and thought 
 
 outsiders dreadful. But Oh, I don't care! I 
 
 don't care ! With you — I'm happy. That's all I know 
 and all I want to know. I've just grown up. I've 
 just learned the greatest wisdom — to know when I'm 
 
36o FREE AIR 
 
 happy. But, Milt dear I say this because I love 
 
 you. Yes, I do love you. No, don't kiss me. Yes, 
 
 it is too It's far too public. And I want to talk 
 
 seriously. You can't have any idea how strong social 
 distinctions are. Don't despise them just because you 
 don't know them." 
 
 " No. I won't. I'll learn. Probably America will 
 get into the war. I'll be an engineering officer. I'll 
 learn this social dope from the college-boy officers. 
 And I'll come to Brooklyn with shoulder-straps and 
 bells on and Will you be waiting? " 
 
 "Oh — yes But, Milt! If the war comes, you 
 
 must be very careful not to get shot ! " 
 
 " All right, if you insist. Good Lord, Claire. I 
 
 don't know what put it into my head but Do you 
 
 realize that a miracle has happened? We're no longer 
 Miss Boltwood and a fellow named Daggett. We 
 have been, even when we've liked each other, up to 
 today. Always there's been a kind of fence between 
 us. We had to explain and defend ourselves and 
 
 scrap But now — we're us, and the rest of the 
 
 world has disappeared, and " 
 
 " And nothing else matters," said Claire. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 THE BEGINNING OF A STORY 
 
 IT was the farewell to Claire and Jeff Saxton, a 
 picnic in the Cascades, near Snoqualmie Falls — a 
 decent and decidedly Milt-less fiesta. Mrs. Gilson was 
 going to show Claire that they were just as hardy 
 adventurers as that horrid Daggett person. So she 
 didn't take the limousine, but merely the seven-pas- 
 senger Locomobile with the special body. 
 
 They were ever so rough and wild. They had no 
 maid. The chauffeur was absolutely the only help to 
 the Gilsons, Claire, Jeff, and the temporarily and ejacu- 
 latorily nature-loving Mrs. Betz in the daring task of 
 setting out two folding camp-tables, covering them 
 with a linen cloth, and opening the picnic basket. 
 Claire had to admit that she wished that she could 
 steal the picnic basket for Milt. There were vacuum 
 bottles of hot coffee. There were sandwiches of 
 anchovy and pate de foie gras. There were cream 
 cakes with almonds hidden in the suave cream, and 
 there was a chicken salad with huge chunks of pure 
 white meat wallowing in a sea of mayonnaise. 
 
 When the gorging was done and the cigarettes 
 brought out (the chauffeur passed a spirit lamp), 
 they stretched on rubber blankets, and groaned a little. 
 
 36 1 
 
36a FREE AIR 
 
 and spoke well of nature and the delights of roughing 
 it. 
 
 " What is it ? What's wrong ? They're so — oh, so 
 polite. They don't mean what they say and they don't 
 dare to say what they mean. Is that it?" worried 
 Claire. 
 
 She started. She discovered that she was looking 
 at a bristle of rope-colored hair and a grin projected 
 from the shelter of a manzanita bush. 
 
 " For the " she gasped. She was too startled to 
 
 be able to decide what was for-the. She spoke ju- 
 diciously to Jeff Saxton about Upper Montclair, the 
 subway, and tennis. She rose to examine the moun- 
 tains, strolled away, darted down a gully, and pounced 
 on Milt Daggett with : 
 
 " How in heaven's name " 
 
 " Found out where you-all were going. Look ! 
 Got a bug ! Rented it. Come on ! Let's duck ! Drive 
 back with me ! " At the end of the gully was a new 
 Teal bug, shinier than the ancient lost chariot, but 
 equally gay and uncomfortable. 
 
 " Can't. Like to, but Be awfully rude to them. 
 
 Won't do that — not more than is good for their souls 
 — even for you. Now don't be sulky." 
 
 " I won't. Nev' be sulky again, because you're 
 crazy about me, and I don't have to be sulky." 
 
 " Oh, I am, am I ! Good heavens, the inconceiv- 
 able conceit of the child ! " 
 
FREE AIR 363 
 
 She turned her back. He darted to her, caught her 
 hands behind her, kissed her hair, and whispered, 
 "You are!" 
 
 "I am not!" 
 
 " Well then, you're not. Lord, you're sweet ! Your 
 hair smells like cinnamon and clean kittens. You'd 
 rather go bumping off in my flivver than sailing in that 
 big Loco they've got there." 
 
 " Yes," defiantly, " I would, and I'm ashamed of 
 myself. I'm a throw-back to my horrid ancestor, the 
 betting hostler." 
 
 "Probably. I'm a throw-back to my ancestor the 
 judge. I'll train you to meet my fine friends." 
 
 " Well — upon — my — word — I Oh, do stop 
 
 being idiotic. We talk like children. You reduce me 
 to the rank of a gibbering schoolgirl. And I like it! 
 It's so — oh, I don't know — so darn human, I suppose. 
 Now hurry — ^kiss me, and get out, before they sus- 
 pect." 
 
 " Listen." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I'll accidentally meet your car along the road. 
 Invite you to ride. All right?" 
 
 " Yes. Do. Oh, we are two forlorn babes in the 
 woods! G'-by." 
 
 She sauntered back to the picnic, and observed, 
 " What is that purple flower up on the mountain side ? " 
 
 The big car was sedately purring back when it was 
 
364 FREE AIR 
 
 insulted by an intermediate host of a machine that 
 came jumping out of a side road. The vulgar driver 
 hailed them with uncouth howling. The Gilsons' 
 chauffeur stopped, annoyed. 
 
 " Why, hello folks," bawled the social bandit. 
 
 " Oh. How do you do," refuted Mrs. Gilson. 
 
 Jeif Saxton turned a ripe purple. 
 
 "How do you like my new bug, Claire? Awful 
 little object. But I can make fifty an hour. Come and 
 try it, Claire, can't you? " 
 
 "Why " Claire was obviously shocked by the 
 
 impropriety of the suggestion. She looked at Mrs. 
 Gilson, who was breathing as though she was just 
 going under the ether. Claire said doubtfully, 
 
 " Well If you can get me right back to the 
 
 house " 
 
 " Sure," agreed Milt. 
 
 When the Loco was gone. Milt drove the bug to 
 the side of the road, yanked up the emergency brake, 
 and carefully kissed the girl who was snuggled down 
 into the absurd low tin-sided seat. 
 
 " Do we have to get back soon ? " he begged. 
 
 " Oh, I don't care if we never get back. Let's shoot 
 up into the mountains. Side road. Let's pretend 
 we're driving across the continent again." 
 
 Firs dashing by — rocks in the sunshine — clouds 
 jaunty beyond the inviting mouth of a mountain pass 
 — even the ruts and bumps and culverts — she seemed 
 
FREE AIR 365 
 
 a part of them all. In the Gilsons' huge cars she had 
 been shut off from the road, but in this tiny bug, so 
 close to earth, she recovered the feeling of struggle, 
 of triumph over difficulties, of freedom unbounded. 
 And she could be herself, good or bad, ignorant or 
 wise, with this boy beside her. All of which she 
 expressed in the most eloquent speech she had ever 
 uttered, namely: 
 
 "Oh, Milt !" 
 
 And, to herself, " Golly, it's such a relief not to have 
 to try to be gracious and aphoristic and repartistic 
 and everything with Jeff." 
 
 And, " But I wonder if I am aphoristic and subtle? 
 I wonder if when she gets the rice-powder off, Claire 
 isn't a lot more like Milt than she thought? " 
 
 And, aloud again, "Oh, this is " 
 
 " Yump. It sure is," Milt agreed. 
 
 They had turned from a side-road into a side-side- 
 road. They crossed an upland valley. The fall rains 
 had flooded a creek till it had cut across the road, 
 washed through the thin gravel, left across the road a 
 shallow violent stream. Milt stopped abruptly at its 
 margin. 
 
 " Here's where we turn back, I guess," he sighed. 
 
 " Oh no ! Can't we get across ? It's only a couple 
 of feet deep, and gravel bottom," insisted the re- 
 stored adventurer. 
 
 " Yes, but look at the steep bank. Never get up it." 
 
366 FREE AIR 
 
 " I don't cere. Let's try it!- We can woggle around 
 and dig it out somehow. I bet you two-bits we can," 
 said the delicate young woman whom Mrs. Gilson was 
 protecting. 
 
 " All right. In she goes ! " 
 
 The bug went in — shot over the bank, dipped down 
 till the little hood sloped below them as though they 
 were looping the loop, struck the rushing water with 
 a splash which hurled yellow drops over Claire's rose 
 jersey suit, lumbered ahead, struck the farther bank, 
 pawed at it feebly, rose two inches, slipped back, and 
 sat there with the gurgling water all around it, turned 
 into a motor-boat. 
 
 " No can do," grunted Milt. " Scared? " 
 
 " Nope. Love it ! This is a real camp — the brush 
 on the bank, and the stream — ^listen to it chuckle under 
 the running-board." 
 
 "Do you like to camp with me? " 
 
 " Love it." 
 
 " Say ! Gee ! Never thought Claire ! Got 
 
 your transportation back East ? " 
 
 "My ticket? Yes. Why?" 
 
 " Well, I'm sure you can turn it in and get a refund. 
 So that's all right." 
 
 " Are you going to let me in on the secret ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, might's well. I was just wondering 
 
 I don't think much of wasting all our youth wait- 
 ing Two-three years in engineering school, and 
 
FREE AIR 367 
 
 maybe going to war, and starting in on an engineer- 
 ing job, and me lonely as a turkey in a chicken yard, 
 
 and you doing the faithful young lady in Brooklyn 
 
 I think perhaps we might get married tomorrow 
 and " 
 
 " Good heavens, what do you ? " 
 
 " Do you want to go back to Brooklyn Gilsonses ? " 
 
 " No, but " 
 
 " Dear, can't we be crazy once, while we're young- 
 sters ? " 
 
 " Don't bombard me so ! Let me think. One must 
 be practical, even in craziness." 
 
 " I am. I have over a thousand dollars from 
 the garage, and I can work evenings — as dear 
 
 Jeff suggested! We'd have a two-by-four flat 
 
 Claire " 
 
 "Oh, let me think. I suppose I could go to the 
 university, too, and learn a little about food and babie? 
 and building houses and government. I need to go 
 to school a lot more than you do. Besides auction 
 and the piano — which I play very badly — and clothes 
 and how to get hold of tickets for successful plays, I 
 don't know one single thing." 
 
 " Will you marry me, tomorrow ? " 
 
 " Well, uh " 
 
 " Think of Mrs. Gilson's face when she learns it ! 
 And Saxton, and that Mrs. Betz ! " 
 
 It was to no spoken sentence but to her kiss that she 
 
368 FREE AIR 
 
 added, " Providing we ever get the car out of this 
 river, that is ! " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, my dear, and all the romantic ways 
 I was going to propose! I had the best line about 
 roses and stars and angels and everything " 
 
 " They always use those, but nobody ever proposed 
 to me in a bug in a flood before! Oh! Milt! Life 
 is fun! I never knew it till you kidnapped me. If 
 you kiss me again like that, we'll both topple over- 
 board. By the way, can we get the car out? " 
 
 " I think so, if we put on the chains. We'll have to 
 take off our shoes and stockings." 
 
 Shyly, turning from him a little, she stripped off her 
 stockings and pumps, while he changed from a flivver- 
 driver into a young viking, with bare white neck, pale 
 hair ruffled about his head, trousers rolled up above his 
 straight knees — a young seaman of the crew of Eric 
 the Red. 
 
 They swung out on the running-board, now awash. 
 With slight squeals they dropped into the cold stream. 
 Dripping, laughing, his clothes clinging to him, he 
 ducked down behind the car to get the jack under the 
 back axle, and with the water gurgling about her and 
 splashing its exhilarating coldness into her face, she 
 stooped beside him to yank the stiff new chains over 
 the rear wheels. 
 
 They climbed back into the car, joyously raffish as 
 a pair of gipsies. She wiped a dab of mud from her 
 
FREE AIR 369 
 
 cheek, and remarked with an earnestness and a natural- 
 ness which that Jeff Saxton who knew her so well 
 would never have recognized as hers : 
 
 " Gee, I hope the old bird crawls out now." 
 
 Milt let in the reverse, raced the engine, started 
 backward with a burst of muddy water churned up by 
 the whirling wheels. They struck the bank, sicken- 
 ingly hung there for two seconds, began to crawl up, 
 up, with a feeling that at any second they would drop 
 back again. 
 
 Then, instantly, they were out on the shore and it 
 was absurd to think that they had ever been boating 
 down there in the stream. They washed each other's 
 muddy faces, and laughed a great deal, and rubbed 
 their legs with their stockings, and resumed something 
 of a dull and civilized aspect and, singing sentimental 
 ballads, turned back, found another road, and started 
 toward a peak. 
 
 " I wonder what lies beyond the top of this climb? " 
 said Claire. 
 
 " More mountains, and more, and more, and we're 
 going to keep on climbing them forever. At dawn, 
 we'll still be going on. And that's our life." 
 
 " Ye-es, providing we can still buy gas." 
 
 "Lord, that's so." 
 
 " Speaking of which, did you know that I have 
 a tiny bit of money — it's about five thousand dollars 
 — of my own ? " 
 
370 FREE AIR 
 
 " But That makes it impossible. Young tramp 
 
 marrying lady of huge wealth " 
 
 " No, you don't ! I've accepted you. Do you think 
 I'm going to lose the one real playmate I've ever had ? 
 It was so lonely on the Boltwoods' brown stoop till 
 Milt came along and whistled impertinently and made 
 
 the solemn little girl in frills play marbles and 
 
 Watch out for that turn! Heavens, how I have to 
 look after you ! Is there a class in cooking at your uni- 
 versity ? No — do — not — kiss — me — on — a — turn ! " 
 
 This is the beginning of the story of Milt and 
 Claire Daggett. 
 
 The prelude over and the curtain risen on the actual 
 play, they face the anxieties and glories of a changing 
 world. Not without quarrels and barren hours, not 
 free from ignorance and the discomfort of finding 
 that between the mountain peaks they must for long 
 gray periods dwell in the dusty valleys, they yet start 
 their drama with the distinction of being able to laugh 
 together, with the advantage of having discovered 
 that neither Schoenstrom nor Brooklyn Heights is 
 quite all of life, with the cosmic importance to the 
 tedious world of believing in the romance that makes 
 youth unquenchable. 
 
 THE END. 
 
ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Ounlap's list 
 
 JUST DAVID 
 
 The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to 
 till in the hearts of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he 
 is left. 
 
 THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING 
 
 A compelling romance of love and marriage. 
 
 OH, MONEY ! MONEY ! 
 
 Stanlew Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the disposi- 
 tions of his relatives, sends them each a check for ^ilOO,- 
 000, and then as plain John Smith comes among them to 
 «t?af:h the result of his experiment. 
 
 SIX STAR RANCH 
 
 A wholesome story of a club of sue girls and their suni- 
 mer on Six Star Ranch. 
 
 DAWN 
 
 The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him 
 through the gulf of despair into a final victory gained by 
 dedicating his life to the service of blind soldiers. 
 
 ACROSS THE YEARS 
 
 Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. 
 Contains some of the best writing Mrs. Porter has done. 
 
 THE TANGLED THREADS 
 
 In these stories we find the concentrated charm and 
 tenderness of all her other books. 
 
 THE TIE THAT BINDS 
 
 Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's won- 
 derful talent for warm and vivid character drawing. 
 
 Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, Nev York 
 
ETHEL M. DELL'S NOVELS 
 
 Hiy be had wiienvir books irt cold. Ask for Grosset ft Dunlap's list. 
 
 THE I>AMP IN THE DESERT 
 
 The scene of this splendid story is laid in India and 
 tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine through | 
 all sorts of tribulations to final happiness. 
 
 GREATHEART 
 
 The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals 
 a noble soul. 
 
 THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE 
 
 A hero who worked to win even when there was oriy 
 a hundredth chance." 
 
 THE SWINDLER 
 
 The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a 
 woman's faith. 
 
 THE TIDAL WAVE 
 
 Tales of love and of women who learned to know the 
 true from the false. 
 
 THE SAFETY CURTAIN 
 
 A very vivid love story of India. The volume also 
 contains four other long stories of equal interest. 
 
 Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York 
 
THE NOVELS OP 
 
 MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 May b» had wherevir boote irt sold. Ask far Srossit t Dmilap's list. 
 
 DANGEROUS DAYS. 
 
 A brilliant story of married life. A romance of fine purpoae and 
 stirring appeal. 
 
 THE AMAZING INTERLUDE. 
 
 Illustrations by The Kinneys. 
 
 The story of a great love which cannot be pictured — an intcr^mde 
 — amarang, romantic. 
 
 LOVE STORIES. 
 
 This book is exactly what its title indicates, a collection of love 
 affairs — sparkling with humor, tenderness and sweetness. 
 
 "K." Illustrated. 
 
 K. LeMoyne, famous surgeon, goes to live in a little town wlfsr<! 
 beautiful Sidney Page lives. She is in training to become a nurr/e. 
 The joys and troubles of their young love are told with keen and 
 sympathetic appreciation. 
 
 THE MAN IN LOWER TEN. 
 
 Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. 
 
 An absorbing detective story woveu around the mysterious death 
 of the " Man in Lower Ten." 
 
 WHEN A MAN MARRIES. 
 
 Illustrated by Harrison Fisher and Mayo Bunker. 
 
 A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that 
 his aunt is soon to visit him. The aunt, who contributes to the 
 family income, knows nothing of the domestic upheaval. How tht, 
 young man met the situation la entertainingly told. 
 
 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE. Illustrated by Lester Ralph. 
 
 The occupants of "Sunnyside" find the dead body of Arnold 
 Armstrong on the circular staircase. Following the murder a bank 
 failure is announced. Aroaad these two events is wov«i a plot ot 
 absorbing interest. 
 
 THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS. (Photoplay Edition.) 
 
 Harmony Wells, studying in Vietma to be a great vioKafet, sud. 
 denly realizes that her money is almost goae. She meets a young ' 
 ambitious doctor who ofiers her eidvahy and sympathy, and together 
 with world-worn Dr. Anna and JimBiie, the waif, tbey share their 
 love and slender means. 
 
 Gewsset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York 
 
a*rj 
 
 FLORENCE L. BARCLAY'S 
 NOVELS 
 
 Hiy to had wherever boote art gold. «sk for emmt a Dunl«p'» iiit — ' 
 
 THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER 
 
 A novel of Uie 12th Century. The heroine, believing she 
 had lost her lover, enters a convent He returns, and in- 
 teresting developments follow. 
 THE UPAS TREE 
 
 A love story of rare charm. It deals with a successfii 
 author and his wife. 
 
 THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE 
 
 The story of a seven day courtship, in which the dis- 
 crepancyin ages vanished into insignificance before the 
 convincing demonstration of abiding love. 
 
 THE ROSARY 
 
 The story of a young artist who is reputed to love beauty 
 above all else in the world, but who, when blinded through 
 an accident, gains life's greatest happiness. A rare story 
 of the great passion of two real people superbly capable of 
 love, its sacrifices and its exceeding reward. 
 
 THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE 
 
 The lovely young Lady Ingleby, recently widowed by the 
 death of a husband who never understood her, meets a fine, 
 clean young chap who is ignorant of her title and they fall 
 deeply in love with each other. When he learns her resil 
 identity a situation of singular power is developed. 
 
 THE BROKEN HALO 
 
 The story of a young man whosa religious belief was 
 shattered in childhood and restored to him by the little 
 white lady, many years older than himself, to whom he is 
 passionately devoted. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR 
 
 The story of a young missionary, who, about to start for 
 Africa, marries wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her 
 fulfill the conditions of her uncle's will, and how they finally 
 come to love each other and are reunited after experiences 
 that soften and p urify. 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, Nevjt York 
 
ZANE GREY^S NOVELS 
 
 Hay bs had wheravor boohs ara sold. Ask tor Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 THE MAN OF THK FOREST 
 THE DESERT OF WHEAT 
 "^ HE U. P. TRAIL 
 WILDFIRE 
 
 I'HE BORDER LEGION 
 THE RAINBOW TRAIL 
 THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT 
 RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE 
 THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS 
 THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN 
 THE LONE STAR RANGER 
 DESERT GOLD 
 BETTY ZANE 
 
 • **••• e 
 
 LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS 
 
 The life story of "Buffalo Bill" by his sister Helen Cody 
 Wetmore, with Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey. 
 
 ZANE GREY'S BOOKS FOR BOYS 
 
 KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE 
 THE YOUNG LION HUNTER 
 THE YOUNG FORESTER 
 THE YOUNG PITCHER 
 THE SHORT STOP 
 
 THE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER 
 BASEBALL STORIES 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York 
 
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD'S 
 
 STORIES OF ADVENTURE 
 
 May be lad wfttrtvir hotlts art »alil. Ask f«f finsart t Bualan's list. 
 
 THE RIVER'S END ' ' 
 
 A story of the Royal Mounted Police. 
 THE GOLDEN SNARE 
 
 Thrilling adventures in the Far Northland. 
 NOMADS OF THE NORTH 
 
 The story of a bear-cub and a dog. 
 
 KAZAN 
 
 The tale of a "quarter-strain wolf and three-quarters husky" tont 
 between the call of the human and his wild mate. 
 
 BAREE, SON OF KAZAN 
 
 The story of the son of the blind Grey Wolf and the galjaut part 
 he played in the lives of a man and a woman. 
 
 THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM 
 
 The story of the King of Beaver Island, a Mormon colony, and his 
 battle with Captain Plum. 
 
 THE DANGER TRAIL 
 
 A tale of love, Indian vengeance, and a mystery of the North. 
 THE HUNTED WOMAN 
 
 A tale of a great fight in the " valley of gold " for a woman. 
 
 THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH 
 
 The story of Fort o' God, where the wild flavor of the wilderness 
 is blended with the courtly atmosphere of France. 
 
 THE GRIZZLY KING 
 
 The story of Thor, the big grizzly. 
 ISOBEL 
 
 A love story of the Far North. 
 THE WOLF HUNTERS 
 
 A thrilling tale of adventure in the Canadian wilderness. 
 THE GOLD HUNTERS 
 
 The story of adventure in the Hudson Bay wilds. 
 THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE 
 
 Filled with exciting incidents in the land of strong men and women. 
 BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY 
 
 A thrilling story of the Far North. The great Photoplay was made 
 from this book. 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York 
 
BOOTH TARKINGTON'S 
 NOVELS 
 
 May bi had wharavir books are soli. AslGIor Grossst & Dunlap's list. 
 
 SEVENTEEN. lUustrated by Arthur William Brown. 
 
 No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed 
 the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irre- 
 Bistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader waa 
 Seventeen. 
 
 PENROD. IlluBtrated by Gordon Grant. 
 
 This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, hu- 
 morous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older 
 folks. It is a finished, exquisite work. 
 
 PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm. 
 
 Like" Penrod" and " Seventeen," this book contains 
 some remarkable pshases of real boyhood and some of the best 
 stories of juvenile pirankishness that have ever been written. 
 
 THE TURMOIL. nioBtrated by C. E. Chambers. 
 
 Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who re- 
 volts against his father''8 plana for him to be a servitor of 
 big business. The love of a fine girl turns Bibb's life from 
 failure to success. 
 
 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece. 
 
 A story of love and politics, — more especially a picture of 
 a country editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book 
 ' lies in the love interest. 
 
 THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. 
 
 The " Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's 
 engagement, drives one man to suicide, causes the murder 
 of another, leads another to lose his fortune, and in the end 
 marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, leaving the really 
 worthy one to marry her sister. 
 
 A^ for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighled Fiction 
 
 Geosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York 
 
KATHLEE N NORRIS' STORIES 
 
 Ktf be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 SISTERS. Frontispiece by Frank Street. 
 
 \ The California Redwoods famish the background for this 
 , beautiful story of sisterly devotion and sacrifice. 
 
 POOR, DEAR. MARGARET KIRBY. 
 Frontispiece by George Gibbs. 
 
 A collection of delightful stories, including "Bridging the 
 Years" and " The Tide-Marsh. " This story is now shown in 
 moving pictures. 
 
 ]OSSELYN'S WIFE . Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. 
 
 The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight for 
 happiness and love. 
 
 MARTIE. THE UNCONQUERED. 
 Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers. 
 The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions. 
 
 THE HEART OF RACHAEL. 
 Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. 
 
 An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come 
 with a second marriage. 
 
 THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. 
 
 B rontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. 
 
 ; A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of a normal girl, obscure 
 
 and lonely, for the happiness of life. 
 
 SATURDAY'S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. 
 
 Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through 
 sheer determination to the better things for which her soul 
 hungered ? 
 
 MOTHER. IHustrated by F. C. Yohn. 
 
 A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background 
 of every girl' s life, and some dreams which came true. 
 
 Aal^ for Complete free list of G. & D. Pofiular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
 Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York