The Windy Hill

MP3 Audio CD. The Windy Hill

CHAPTER I

THE BEEMAN


The road was a sunny, dusty one, leading upward through Medford
Valley, with half-wooded hills on each side whose far outline quivered
in the hot, breathless air of mid-June afternoon. Oliver Peyton seemed
to have no regard for heat or dust, however, but trudged along with
such a determined stride that people passing turned to look after him,
and more than one swift motor car curved aside to give him room.

"Want a ride?" inquired one genial farmer, drawing up beside him.
"Where are you going?"

Oliver turned to answer the first question, meaning to reply with a
relieved "yes," but his square, sunburned face hardened at the second.

"Oh, I am just going down the road--a little way," he replied stiffly,
shook his head at the repeated offer of a lift, and tramped on in the
dust.

The next man he met seemed also to feel a curiosity as to his errand,
for he stopped a very old, shambling horse to lean from his seat and
ask point-blank: "Where may you be going in such a hurry on such a
hot day?"

Oliver, looking up at the person who addressed him and gauging his
close-set, hard gray eyes and his narrow, dark face, conceived an
instant dislike and distrust of the stranger. He replied shortly, as
he had before, but with less good temper:

"I am going down the road a little way. And, as you say, I am rather
in a hurry."