A BUSINESS JOURNEY
"I have to go to the Klappan," Bill apprised his wife one evening.
"Want to come along?"
Hazel hesitated. Her first instinctive feeling was one of reluctance
to retrace that nerve-trying trail. But neither did she wish to be
separated from him.
"I see you don't," he observed dryly. "Well, I can't say that I blame
you. It's a stiff trip. If your wind and muscle are in as poor shape
as mine, I guess it would do you up--the effort would be greater than
any possible pleasure."
"I'm sorry I can't feel any enthusiasm for such a journey," she
remarked candidly. "I could go as far as the coast with you, and meet
you there when you come out. How long do you expect to be in there?"
"I don't know exactly," he replied. "I'm not going in from the coast,
though. I'm taking the Ashcroft-Fort George Trail. I have to take in
a pack train and more men and get work started on a decent scale."
"But you won't have to stay there all summer and oversee the work, will
you?" she inquired anxiously.
"I should," he said.
For a second or two he drummed on the table top.
"I should do that. It's what I had in mind when I started this thing,"
he said wistfully. "I thought we'd go in this spring and rush things
through the good weather, and come out ahead of the snow. We could
stay a while at the ranch, and break up the winter with a jaunt here or
some place."
"But is there any real necessity for you to stay on the ground?" She
pursued her own line of thought. "I should think an undertaking of
this size would justify hiring an expert to take charge of the actual
mining operations. Won't you have this end of it to look after?"
"Lorimer and Brooks are eminently capable of upholding the dignity and
importance of that sign they've got smeared across the windows
downtown," he observed curtly. "The chief labor of the office they've
set up will be to divide the proceeds. The work will be done and the
money made in the Klappan Range. You sabe that, don't you?"
"I'm not stupid," she pouted.
"I know you're not, little person," he said quietly. "But you've
changed a heap in the last few months. You don't seem to be my pal any
more. You've fallen in love with this butterfly life. You appear to
like me just as much as ever, but if you could you'd sentence me to
this kid-glove existence for the rest of my natural life. Great
Caesar's ghost!" he burst out. "I've laid around like a well-fed
poodle for seven months. And look at me--I'm mush! Ten miles with a
sixty-pound pack would make my tongue hang out. I'm thick-winded, and
twenty pounds over-weight--and you talk calmly about my settling down
to office work!"
His semi-indignation, curiously enough, affected Hazel as being
altogether humorous. She had a smile-compelling vision of that
straight, lean-limbed, powerful body developing a protuberant waistline
and a double chin. That was really funny, so far-fetched did it seem.
And she laughed. Bill froze into rigid silence.
"I'm going to-morrow," he said suddenly. "I think, on the whole, it'll
be just as well if you don't go. Stay here and enjoy yourself. I'll
transfer some more money to your account. I think I'll drop down to
the club."
She followed him out into the hall, and, as he wriggled into his coat,
she had an impulse to throw her arms around his neck and declare, in
all sincerity, that she would go to the Klappan or to the north pole or
any place on earth with him, if he wanted her. But by some peculiar
feminine reasoning she reflected in the same instant that if Bill were
away from her in a few weeks he would be all the more glad to get back.
That closed her mouth. She felt too secure in his affection to believe
it could be otherwise. And then she would cheerfully capitulate and go
back with him to his beloved North, to the Klappan or the ranch or
wherever he chose. It was not wise to be too meek or obedient where a
husband was concerned. That was another mite of wisdom she had
garnered from the wives of her circle.
So she kissed Bill good-by at the station next day with perfect good
humor and no parting emotion of any particular keenness. And if he
were a trifle sober he showed no sign of resentment, nor uttered any
futile wishes that she could accompany him.
"So long," he said from the car steps. "I'll keep in touch--all I can."
Then he was gone.
Somehow, his absence made less difference than Hazel had anticipated.
She had secretly expected to be very lonely at first. And she was not.
She began to realize that, unconsciously, they had of late so arranged
their manner of life that separation was a question of degree rather
than kind. It seemed that she could never quite forego the impression
that Bill was near at hand. She always thought of him as downtown or
in the living-room, with his feet up on the mantel and a cigar in his
mouth. Even when in her hand she held a telegram dated at a point five
hundred or a thousand miles or double that distance away she did not
experience the feeling of complete bodily absence. She always felt as
if he were near. Only at night, when there was no long arm to pillow
her head, no good-night kiss as she dozed into slumber, she missed him,
realized that he was far away. Even when the days marched past,
mustering themselves in weekly and monthly platoons and Bill still
remained in the Klappan, she experienced no dreary leadenness of soul.
Her time passed pleasantly enough.
Early in June came a brief wire from Station Six. Three weeks later
the Free Gold Mining Company set up a mild ripple of excitement along
Broad Street by exhibiting in their office window a forty-pound heap of
coarse gold; raw, yellow gold, just as it had come from the sluice.
Every day knots of men stood gazing at the treasure. The Granville
papers devoted sundry columns to this remarkably successful enterprise
of its local business men. Bill had forwarded the first clean-up.
And close on the heels of this--ten days later, to be exact--he came
home.