As the train approached the spot where the herd was crossing the track, the locomotive gave its loudest and shrillest shrieks. The noise[Pg 44] had the effect of frightening the buffaloes sufficiently to stop those which had not crossed, and in the gap thus formed the train moved on. The boys were greatly interested in the appearance of the beasts, and Frank declared he had never seen anything that looked more fierce than one of the old bulls, with his shaggy mane, his humped shoulders, and his sharp, glittering eyes. He was quite contented with the shelter of the railway-car, and said if the buffalo wanted him he must come inside to get him; or give him a good rifle, so that they could meet on equal terms.
"Good-morning," he responded, tardily and grimly. "Well, you air in a hurry."Allingham shot a look of veiled anger at the other, and prepared to re-enter the car.
This was a joke of well-established standing, and asked permission to light a cigarette. Leave was given him, and he insisted that she should strike the match and hold it to the end of his cigarette.He took it from her, and noticing the rather incisive politeness of her tone, looked up at her. The furrow was still there, very impatiently ruled, but the clear glance was there also: radiantly it shone on him, quite undisturbed by the superficial agitation. It concerned not the surface of her, but the depths.Keeling hesitated: he wanted to say something to her which showed, however remotely, the gleam of his feelings, something which should let that spark of unspoken comprehension flash backwards and forwards again.Upon whatever fundamental scheme we perseveringly concentrate our powers, upon whatever main road of occupation we take life's journey,--art, politics, commerce, science,--if only we will take its upper fork as often as the road divides, then will that road itself, and not necessarily any cross-road, lead us to the noblest, truest plane of convictions, affections, aspirations. Such a frame of mind may be quite without religiosity, as unconscious as health; but the proof of its religious reality will be that, as if it were a lighthouse light and we its keeper, everybody else, or at any rate everybody out on the deep, will see it plainer than we. Such is the gist of what this young man was saying to me, when our speculations were brought to an end by our overtaking a man well mounted, and a woman whose rough-gaited was followed by a colt.
