"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 relative 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."
"Yes," Claire answered on the telephone, "I seem 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. Boltwood, 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 gooping, 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 supper and gone to their tents.
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 Saxton would have shown a labyrinth. Now, she was muttering, "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
managerial, 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."