“Congratulations, George. I knew it would come out all right.”
His brows came down in puzzled, skeptical fashion as he took my hand.
There was in his expression a tinge of suspicion, and he smiled as one
smiles when humoring a sick man.
“There’s hidden country in you, all right, old boy,” he said. “You
ought to play poker.”
More sleep and more nightmares, the latter now complicated by the
presence of George. Brack no longer was dragging Betty to the rail;
she was standing by George’s side; and Brack and I were playing poker.
Then at last came the sane untroubled sleep of normal condition, and I
awoke one morning ravenously hungry and glad that the sun was bright
outside.
“You can join the convalescent squad now,” said Dr. Olson, and under
the awning on the fore-deck I joined Pierce and Simmons, stretched at
ease in luxurious deck-chairs.
“Though it isn’t my fault, sir,” protested Simmons, “the master is not
doing right by himself in putting me here.”
* * * * *
I sank down into my chair and looked over water and hills with the
wondering eyes of a man who has come back to the world after a long
absence. And I found it good.
The _Wanderer_ lay in the same spot where Pierce and I had found her
on that dark night, Wilson still being too weak to navigate her and
there being nobody else capable of the task. The water about us was
blue and still, and the birch and pine of the shores were mirrored in
it to the smallest shade and detail. Back from the bay rose the
age-old hills, step after step of them, growing higher and higher,
until they became the great mountain-range which shut the valley in
from the rest of the world. And the sun was so bright that I closed my
eyes, and the primal peace soaked me to the bone.
Betty came and went, and George; and they made a splendid pair as they
rounded the decks on their promenade. They went canoeing together, and
Old Slade swore, and we agreed with him, that “there couldn’t be no
purtier sight than that on God’s green earth.”
Then George would join us under the awning, and Slade and Harris and
he would talk over the development of their property. For George was
going in partnership with them. The free pay dirt of their mine was
about played out and machinery and labor to tear the hills to pieces
were necessary for the further working of the find.
“And what about the bones up at Petroff Sound?” I asked.
“No use—not necessary now,” George replied. “Besides, this is easier,
and nearer to Fifth Avenue, and these last days have been so strenuous
that I’m about filled up.”