WITH AN ABRUPT jerk, Joe Wilson, from lying on a cot in the little tent, lifted himself on his elbow in an attitude of intent listening. There was no sound except the hum of a sleepy breeze through the pines, the sleepier contralto of a mocking bird, and the purring undertone of rippling water.
"That's her!" he whispered. With an effort he sat erect, and again told himself: "That's her!"
All at once there came the crackle of voices without, the sound of thudding footsteps. Joe flung himself back on the cot and closed his eyes with furious energy as the flap of the tent was lifted and the engineer and the doctor peered within.
"He's asleep," said the engineer in a low voice.
"Hm!" said the doctor. He was a wizened little man with spectacles. Then he let the flap drop, and his voice came to Joe brusquely through the canvas. "Well, we'll come back. I want to talk to him. He's probably not very sick, but—by God, man, you've got to keep your men from the water around here, or you'll never finish your railroad!"
They were walking away as he spoke, and to Joe the voice seemed to fade.
"I tell you . . . . polluted . . . . fever . . . ."
Then they were gone, the sound of them swallowed up in the ripple of the little creek over the rocks. With a start, Joe again was erect, his eyes furtive, glancing about the little canvas chamber. He tiptoed to the flap, and lifted it a bare inch, peering out upon the receding figures of the two men as they passed beneath a water-oak.
With no less caution he crept to the other end of the tent, and stepped through the flap into the open. For a moment he stood irresolute, his eyes closed, as if he were dizzy.
"Keep away from the water, you fool!" he whispered.
There was no other sound of life in the woods now; the breeze had died and the mocking bird was silent. Only the prattle of a nearby stream over its rocky bed . . . .
With a stumbling, nervous stride that was almost a run, Joe Wilson went toward the sound of the water, and at last he plunged through a thick clump of willows and stood stiff, half-crouching, at the top of a bank of damp green moss that sloped steeply to a little stream with pools like black wells, still and silent. Only the silver shallows between pools rippled with life.
At the foot of the bank was a shelf of rock, splotched green with moss, reaching into the stream barely an inch above the water. Upon it Joe's glance rested, as if held by a power outside himself. He drew back into the willows; his sunken eyes closed in his pale face; then, with a sudden spring, he was over the bank and perched upon the rock.
Something like a smile lighted his face, as if with the leap he had settled a troublesome matter. He sat down as easily and comfortably as he might, his legs doubled, his hands clasped about his knees; and stared intently into the black pool at his feet.
And then, between a closing and an opening of his eyes, a woman was there where he had looked for her.
There was no sense of suddenness about the apparition; only, when he closed his eyes against a dizziness, there was the water and nothing else; when he opened them, an instant later, she was standing in the midst of the pool, almost where he could touch her. And it was as if she had been there all the while.
The water reached a little above her ankles. Her legs were bare to the knees, clothed above that, and her body as well, in a soft clinging garment of white that seemed a part of her; white throat and arms were bare. Her face was alive with a pleasant smile; her eyes, of green and gray together, were alive and pleasant, too.
"You are late," she said. There was something of the stream's bright ripple in her voice. Joe Wilson could only smile in answer; then his smile faded and his face was scornful and somewhat stubborn.
"Yes," he said, "and I came near not coming at all. I swore I wouldn't."
"But you came," she said, still smiling.
"Only to tell you that this is the last time."
Her smile, merrier now, was accompanied by a sound that might have been the gurgle of a little whirlpool in the rapids, or it might have been a low note of laughter.
"You didn't mean it, then, that you love me," she chided, coming nearer. It was not by a step that she moved, or by any perceptible effort. The space between them all at once was lessened, nothing else.
Joe had lost his careless air and posture. He was on his knees, a fury in his words.
"I didn’t mean it? You can't say that. I have become less than a man, I love you so. You bring me here every day to do as you will, and I would die if I didn't come, I love you so. For you I have broken my word to my friends back there in camp. And I don't know who you are or what you are."
Again that gentle sound that might have been a sudden swirl of the water, or her laughter. Then she was nearer, and her pleasant eyes looked into his, mockery in them.
"You don't know who I am?" she asked softly. "And yet I am yours."
The stubborn lines in Joe's face vanished. A quick throb of blood choked into a gulp the word he would have spoken, and he stretched out his arms. She was suddenly beyond his reach.
"Yours," she said again, and that she laughed there was no doubt this time.
Joe's eyes were hungry. Joe leaned forward upon his stiffened arms, and stared at her like a wistful dog.
"I don't know who you are," he whispered. "I don't know who you are."
"I am whoever you want me to be," she said.
"I'll call you Sadie," he said.
"Sadie?" Her lids drooped, veiling her eyes, but their narrow glimmer was keenly alive.
"Yes, there is a girl—"
Between two words she was close before him at the edge of the rock.
"I am yours," she said in a fierce, low voice. "What do you care for any girl? I am all woman, and you have me. What do you care for the world? You have me."
He felt her breath on his face. There was warmth and fragrance in it. Her
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