第18章 CHAPTER V THE GOING OF JOSHUA(3)

Perhaps the horse would have stood still--he seemed about to do so-- but from the distance, somewhere on the road he had just traversed, came a howl, long-drawn and terrifyingly familiar. Joshua heard it, jumped sidewise, jerked at the halter and, as if playing "snap the whip," sent his would-be captor heels over head over the edge of the bank and rolling down the sandy slope. The halter flew from Brown's hands, he rolled and bumped and clutched at clumps of grass and bushes. Then he struck the beach and stopped, spread-eagled on the wet sand.

A voice said: "Well--by--TIME!"

Brown looked up. Seth Atkins, a paint pail in one hand and a dripping brush in the other, was standing beside him, blank astonishment written on his features.

"Well--by time!" said Seth again, and with even stronger emphasis.

The substitute assistant raised himself to his knees, rubbed his back with one hand, and then, turning, sat in the sand and returned his superior's astonished gaze with one of equal bewilderment.

"Hello!" he gasped. "Well, by George! it's you, isn't it! What are you doing here?"

The lightkeeper put down the pail of paint.

"What am I doin'?" he repeated. "What am I doin'--? Say!" His astonishment changed to suspicion and wrath. "Never you mind what I'm doin'," he went on. "That's my affairs. What are YOU doin' here? That's what I want to know."

Brown rubbed the sand out of his hair.

"I don't know exactly what I am doing--yet," he panted.

"You don't, hey? Well, you'd better find out. Maybe I can help you to remember. Sneakin' after me, wa'n't you? Spyin', to find out what I was up to, hey?"

He shook the wet paint brush angrily at his helper. Brown looked at him for an instant; then he rose to his feet.

"Spyin' on me, was you?" repeated Seth.

"Didn't I tell you that mindin' your own business was part of our dicker if you was goin' to stay at Eastboro lighthouse? Didn't I tell you that?"

The young man answered with a contemptuous shrug. Turning on his heel, he started to walk away. Atkins sprang after him.

"Answer me," he ordered. "Didn't I say you'd got to mind your own business?"

"You did," coldly.

"You bet I did! And was you mindin' it?"

"No. I was minding yours--like a fool. Now you may mind it yourself."

"Hold on there! Where you goin'?"

"Back to the lights. And you may go to the devil, or anywhere else that suits your convenience, and take your confounded menagerie with you."

"My menag-- What on earth? Say, hold on! Mercy on us, what's that?"

From the top of the bluff came a crashing and a series of yelps.

Through the thicket of beachplum bushes was thrust a yellow head, fringed with torn fragments of fly paper.

"What's that?" demanded the astonished lightkeeper.

Brown looked at the whining apparition in the bushes and smiled maliciously.

"That," he observed, "is Job."

"JOB?"

"Yes." From somewhere in the grove came a thrashing of branches and a frightened neigh. "And that," he continued, "is Joshua, I presume. If there are more Old Testament patriarchs in the vicinity, I don't know where they are, and I don't care. You may hunt for them yourself. I'm going to follow your advice and mind my own business. Good by."

He strode off up the beach. Job, at the top of the bank, started to follow, but a well-aimed pebble caused him to dodge back.

"Hold on!" roared the lightkeeper. "Maybe I made a mistake.

Perhaps you wa'n't spyin' on me. Don't go off mad. I . . . Wait!"

But John Brown did not wait. He strode rapidly away up the beach.

Seth stared after him. From the grove, where his halter had caught firmly in the fork of a young pine, Joshua thrashed and neighed.

"Aa-oo-ow!" howled Job, from the bushes.

An hour later Atkins, leading the weary and homesick Joshua by the bridle, trudged in at the lighthouse yard. Job, still ornamented with remnants of the fly paper, slunk at his heels. Seth stabled the horse and, after some manoeuvering, managed to decoy the dog down the slope to the boathouse, where he closed the door upon him and his whines. Then he climbed back to the kitchen.

The table was set for one, and in the wash boiler on the range the giant lobster was cooking. Of the substitute assistant keeper there was no sign, but, after searching, Seth found him in his room.

"Well?" observed Atkins, gruffly, "we might 's well have supper, hadn't we?"

Brown did not seem interested. "Your supper is ready, I think," he answered. "I tried not to forget anything."

"I guess 'tis; seems to be. Come on, and we'll eat."

"I have eaten, thank you."

"You have? Alone?"

"Yes. That, too," with emphasis, "is a part of my business."