Forbes’s eyes glittered. “Colonel John Fairfax’s daughter, eh! I was reading an article in the paper about him the other day that said he owned about half the railroads in the United States. His daughter will be quite a catch for a poor man. Eh, Howard!”
Howard made a slight movement. “I would rather not discuss Miss Fairfax, captain,” he returned, quietly. “When and how can we get away from here?”
Forbes held his glass to the light and squinted at it. “Well, Howard,” he remarked reflectively. “I’ve been kind of expecting you to ask me that. In fact, I brought you down here to give you a chance to ask me. The truth is, you can’t get away at all unless you come to terms with me.”
“What are your terms?”
“Well—I’ll come to that after a while. Look here, Howard, I’ve been here ten years and I never was so comfortable in my life before. I’ve lived easy and slept soft, and never had a minute’s worry about grocery bills or taxes, or any of the other plagues of civilization. And my men have been in the same case. They’ve had just work enough to keep them healthy, and just drink enough to keep them happy. If they were out of this, they’d either be working like dogs or drunk—also like dogs. Why in thunder should either they or I want to go back to that old damnable life?”
“No reason at all, captain, if you’re content here.”
“That’s the devil of it. I’m not content. I’m just fool enough to ache to get back. But I don’t want to go back empty-handed. I don’t want to go back poor. I want to go back rich, with influential connections, social relations, and all the rest of it.”
Howard smiled. “You’re not the only one who wants all that, captain,” he observed. “There are others.”
“So I suppose. But the difference between them and me is that since you got here I’ve got all this right in my fist. This morning it was far away; now it is close at hand. As I said, I’ve been here for ten years. In that time I have been over about five thousand wrecks, old and new. Nearly every one of them has had money on her. Some have had very large sums. Large or small, I have collected them all. It makes a great fortune for one; it is enough for two; but it isn’t a hill of beans among a score.”
“I am beginning to see.”