Read Online Dolan of Sugar Hills by Kate Starr - Free Book Online Page A

emergency it would be better to be clothed and ready, Cane directed. He himself did not even take off his boots. “I’ll be doing the rounds during the night,” he told Sheila when she suggested that he would relax better with them off. “I’ll have to see that the battening-down is holding good.”
    Carlo, Nino, Noel, Truda and Marty were sound asleep by this time. Truda tossed, Nino whimpered, Noel had a little snuffly snore like the sound of a possum.
    At the other end of the room Cane lit a cigarette. Sheila heard the little scratching noise, saw the red glow.
    A gust freshened and died, another gust raced in.
    Except for the cigarette it was quite black.
    “Sheila...”
    “Yes?” She breathed it a little unevenly.
    “Comfortable?”
    “Yes.” She remembered herself and added as she had once before, “Thank you very much.”
    “That’s better,” he said, and there was laughter in his voice. So he was remembering, too.
    He smoked awhile.
    “Frightened?”
    “No, Cane.”
    “Were you frightened?”
    “For a little while.”
    “Crocodiles, snakes, cyclones,” he said presently. “You’re running into a pack of trouble, aren’t you, newchum?”
    “They’re not so bad,” she declared.
    “I believe you mean that. You take to hazards like a cake to icing. You’re a good girl.”
    It was simple praise, elementary praise, but curiously it brought a glowing warmth to Sheila, a warmth that she never would have dreamed possible before.
    Then all at once she was not feeling just pleased and commended, she was feeling something else.
    She was feeling the presence of this man in the opposite corner, feeling it almost as though she was haunted by it, feeling her strength ebb in some curious helpless, but strangely rapturous way, feeling so happy she could have cried out her joy.
    I’ll always remember this night, she thought, this room, Truda’s tossing, Nino’s whimpering, Noel’s funny little snores, the gusts rattling the windows, the house shuddering ... And I’ll always remember him.
    “Sheila...”
    “Yes, Cane?”
    A pause, a long quiet pause, then: “Good night, Sheila.”
    “Good night,” Sheila said.
    It was still blowing in the morning, but Cane said it was blowing out. The rain had started again. Cane contacted radar, but there was no sign of any secondary satellite cyclone.
    “Let’s hope Harriet’s little sister, Millicent, spares us this time,” said Cane, “and let’s hope big sister hasn’t treated us too roughly.”
    “When will you know?”
    “After I inspect the fields. The way the squalls are diminishing I expect to be able to do that within a few hours.” Cane went to the phone to speak to the barracks again, and Sheila turned her attention to the job of getting the children up, washed, dressed, fed.
    It was no easy task, since they were inclined to be fretful.
    Cane was eating his breakfast hurriedly.
    “I won’t be able to inspect the fields after all,” he announced looking up at Sheila. “There’s been word from Ivan, some thirty miles out, and Harriet has treated their village very shabbily. I’m going down to lend a hand. Care to come?”
    “Won’t I be needed here?”
    “Possibly, but probably, too, you’ll be more needed there. What do you say, Molly?”
    “I say she must go, Cane. Ivan came to our help the year before last. I’ve packed hampers and I’ve collected all available clothes.”
    Molly served Sheila the first breakfast, and Sheila, after a moment’s hesitation, sat down and ate as quickly as Cane.
    They left within twenty minutes. Sheila was astounded at what they had collected and packed in so short a time. Not only was there food and clothing in big cartons but even toys had been pushed in.
    “According to the report a row of houses has gone,” said Cane. “Children can accept that, but not the loss of a beloved doll, of a bear, of a windup truck ... that, anyway, I have always found.”
    “Did our children—” Sheila corrected