Even in her confused state of apprehension, there was a certain gratification to Patricia in seeing that the boss was impressed by the fact that she owned a cattle ranch in Nevada. She was also glad that it had not been necessary to explain the identity of Gary Marshall. But immediately it became necessary.
“This Gary Marshall who disappeared; do you know him?”
“I’m engaged to marry him,” Patricia replied in as neutral a tone as she could manage. “I didn’t know he was at Johnnywater,” she added truthfully. “That’s why I thought it was a joke when I first read it. I still don’t understand how he could be there at all. He was playing the lead in a picture when I left Los Angeles.”
“You don’t mean Gary Marshall, the Western star?” The boss’s tone was distinctly exclamatory. Patricia saw that her engagement to Gary Marshall impressed the boss much more deeply than did her ownership of Johnnywater ranch. “That young man is going right to the top in pictures. He acts with his brains and forgets his good looks. Most of ’em do it the other way round. Why, I’d rather go and see Gary Marshall in a picture than any star I know! And you’re engaged to him! Well, well! I didn’t know, Miss Connolly, that I was so closely related to my favorite movie star. May I see that telegram again? Lord, I’d hate to think anything’d happened to that boy—but don’t you worry! If I’m not mistaken, he’s a lad that can take care of himself where most men would go under. By all means, go and see what’s wrong. And I wish, Miss Connolly, you’d wire me as soon as you find that everything is all right. You will find it all right—I’m absolutely positive on that point.”
Patricia cherished a deep respect for her boss. She felt suddenly convicted of a great wrong. She had never dreamed that a man with the keen, analytical mind of John S. Wilson could actually respect a fellow who worked in the movies. She left the office humbled and anxious to make amends.
That evening the boss himself took her to the train and saw that she was comfortable, and spoke encouragingly of Gary’s ability to take care of himself, no matter what danger threatened. His encouragement, however, only served to alarm Patricia the more. She was a shrewd young woman, and she read deep concern in the mind of her boss, from the very fact that he had taken the pains to reassure her.
That night Gary dreamed that Steve Carson stood suddenly before him and spoke to him. He dreamed that Steve Carson told him he would not starve to death in there, for his sweetheart was coming with men who would dig him out.
Gary woke with the dream so vivid in his mind that he could scarcely reason himself out of the belief that Steve Carson had actually talked with him. Gary lay thinking of Sir Ernest Shackleton, of whose voyages to the Antarctic he had read again and again. He recalled how close Shackleton and his companions had shaved starvation, not from necessity, but from choice, in the interests of science. He tried to guess what Shackleton would do, were he in Gary’s predicament, with four candles and the stub of a fifth in his possession, and approximately two gallons of water.
“I bet he’d go strong for several days yet,” Gary whispered. “He’d cut the candles into little bits and eat one piece and call it a meal. And he’d figure out just how many wallops he could give that damned rock on the strength of his gorgeous feed of one inch of candle. And then, when he’d dined on the last wick and hit the rock a last wallop, he’d grin and say it had been a great game.” He turned painfully over upon the other side and laid his face upon his bent arm.
“Shackleton never was shut up in a hole a hundred miles from nowhere,” he murmured, “with nobody knowing a word about it but a pinto cat that’s crazy over spiritualism. If Shackleton was here, I bet he’d say, ‘Eat the candles, boy, and take your indigestion all at one time and finish the game.’ No use dragging out the suspense till the audience gets the gapes. First time I ever starred in a story that had an unhappy ending. I didn’t think the Big Director would do it!”