CHAPTER VI
The next two weeks sped by as if with one rise and fall of the tides. I spent the time in locating the various fields of game: the tall holly-trees where the wild turkeys roosted, the sloughs where the bass were gamest, and marked down the cover of the partridge. In the meantime I collected specimens for the university.
It came about that I didn’t always go out alone. The best time of all to study wild-life is in late twilight and the first hours of dawn—and at such times Edith was unemployed. Many the still, late evenings when we stood together on the shore and watched the curlews in their strange, aerial minuet that no naturalist has even been able to explain; many the dewey morning that we watched the first sun’s rays probe through the mossy forest. She had an instinctive love for the outdoors, and her agile young body had seemingly fibers of steel. At least she could follow me wherever I wanted to go.
Once we came upon the Floridan deer, feeding in a natural woods-meadow, and once a gigantic manatee, the most rare of large American mammals, flopped in the mud of the Ochakee River. We knew that incredible confusion and bustle made by the wild turkeys when they flew to the tree-tops to roost; and she learned to whistle the partridge out from their thickets.
Of course we developed a fine companionship. I learned of her early life, a struggle against poverty that had been about to overwhelm her when her uncle had come to her aid; and presently I was telling her all of my own dreams and ambitions. She was wholly sympathetic with my aim to continue my university work for a higher degree; then to spend my life in scientific research. I described some of the expeditions that I had in mind but which seemed so impossible of fulfillment—the exploration of the great “back country” of Borneo, a journey across that mysterious island, Sumatra, the penetration of certain unknown realms of Tibet.
“But they take thousands of dollars—and I haven’t got ’em,” I told her quietly.
She looked out to sea a long time. “I wish I could find Jason’s treasure for you,” she answered at last.
I was used to Edith’s humor, and I looked up expecting to see the familiar laughter in her eyes. But the luster in those deep, blue orbs was not that of mirth. Fancies as beautiful as she was herself were sweeping her away....
Most of the guests arrived on the same train at the little town of Ochakee, and motored over to Kastle Krags. A half dozen in all had accepted Nealman’s invitation. I saw them when they got out of their cars.
Of course I straightened their names out later. At the time I only studied their faces—just as I’d study a new specimen, found in the forest. And when Edith and I compared notes afterward we found that our first impression was the same—that all six were strikingly similar in type.