“Back to New York!” Tavernake muttered, disconsolately.
“So you're not ready yet?” Pritchard demanded.
“Heavens, no!” Tavernake answered. “Who would be? What is there in New York to make up for this?”
Pritchard was silent for a moment.
“Well,” he said, “one of us must be getting back near civilization. The syndicate will be expecting to hear from us. Besides, we've reports enough already. It's time something was decided about that oil country. We've done some grand work there, Tavernake.”
Tavernake nodded. He was lying on his side and his eyes were fixed wistfully southward, over the glimmering moonlit valley, over the great wilderness of virgin pine woods which hung from the mountains on the other side, away through the cleft in the hills to the plains beyond, chaotic, a world unseen.
“If you like to go on for a bit,” Pritchard suggested, slowly, “there's no reason why you shouldn't take McCleod and Richardson with you, and Pete and half the horses, and strike for the tin country on the other side of the Yolite Hills. So long as we are here, it's quite worth it, if you can stick it out.”
Tavernake drew a long breath.
“I'd like to go,” he admitted, simply. “I know McCleod is keen about prospecting further south. You see, most of our finds so far have been among the oil fields.”
“Settled,” Pritchard declared. “To-morrow, then, we part. I'm for the valley, and I reckon I'll strike the railway to Chicago in a week. Gee whiz! New York will seem good!”