They arrived at the boarding house late in the evening. Mrs. Hallowell
set out a cold supper, to which Bob was ready to do full justice. Ten
minutes later he found himself in a tiny box of a bedroom, furnished
barely. He pushed open the window and propped it up with a piece of
kindling. The earth had fallen into a very narrow silhouette, and the
star-filled heavens usurped all space, crowding the world down. Against
the sky the outlines stood significant in what they suggested and
concealed--slumbering roof-tops, the satiated mill glowing vaguely
somewhere from her banked fires, the blackness and mass of silent lumber
yards, the mysterious, hushing fingers of the ships' masts, and then low
and vague, like a narrow strip of velvet dividing these men's affairs
from the star-strewn infinite, the wilderness. As Bob leaned from the
window the bigness of these things rushed into his office-starved spirit
as air into a vacuum. The cold of the lake breeze entered his lungs. He
drew a deep breath of it. For the first time in his short business
experience he looked forward eagerly to the morrow.
VIII
Bob was awakened before daylight by the unholy shriek of a great
whistle.
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