General McCalloway cleared his throat. It came hard for him to talk of himself and of a sacrifice made for another.
"It has this to do with you, my boy," he announced bluntly: "I have been offered a soldier's job over there. I have been invited to aid in work that would help to stabilize China—and I have refused."
Boone Wellver's lips parted in amazement.
"Refused," he gasped. "Fer God's sake, what made ye do hit!"
"Because of you," was the sober response. "I thought you needed me, and I thought you were worth standing by."
"Fer me!" The lad was trembling again, but this time not with anger. "I reckon I'll be powerful beholden ter ye, all my life, fer thet—but ye hedn't ought ter hev done hit. They needs ye over thar, too—an' thar's monstrous numbers of 'em, from what ye narrates."
"I know it, Boone," McCalloway spoke earnestly. "I've centred some very ambitious dreams about your future. The time is hardly ripe to explain them—but you have a great opportunity—unless you throw it away in vengeful fury. If you won't trust me to guide you—until you come of age, at least—I had much better have gone to China."
The boy turned away, and in his set face McCalloway could read that for him this was an actual moment of Gethsemane. Through his nature as over a hotly embattled field surged contrary and warring emotions—and between them he was cruelly buffeted.
"God knows I'm wishful," he broke out at length. "An' God knows, atter what ye've jest told me, I hain't got no license ter deny ye nothin' ye asks—but—" The end of his sentence came like a sob. "But ye wouldn't ask me ter be disloyal ter my own kith an' kin, would ye?"
"No—but I would ask you to have a higher loyalty."