“It means we’ve won,” chuckled his chief, coming back into his tent.
“If you haven’t the best—luck,” substituted MacLean, self-consciously.
“If you say ‘luck’ to me,” grinned Rickard, “I’ll cane you! Get out, I want my shower. They’ll be coming over here now.”
An hour later, after every one in camp had looked and speculated and smiled, the first thrill passed, at the massed Indians, Coronel led in a picked group of the tribes. If the white chief would recall the boycott, the Monday strike was over. The white man’s silver had won.
Rickard shook hands all around, and commended Coronel privately. “You’ll get a present for this.” The wrinkled face was majestically inscrutable.
“They could never do it like white men,” commented Rickard after they had left the ramada. “They must get up that bit of bravado; they are like children—” He never finished his sentence. He was thinking of a little white tent, and an instant of nausea when he had first seen those waiting Indians.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE WHITE NIGHT
“LORD, I’m tired,” groaned Rickard, stumbling into camp, wet to the skin. “Don’t you say letters to me, Mac. I’m going to bed. Tell Ling I don’t want any dinner. He’ll want to fuss up something. I don’t want to see food.”
As he moved on to his tent, MacLean noted a dragging step and a feverish face. But his anxiety was dwarfed by Ling’s. The Chinese immediately invaded Rickard’s tent, leaving the dishing of the dinner to Godfrey. Ling found Rickard, burning with fever, stripping for a cold shower.
“Velly bad, velly bad,” he exclaimed. “Hi, there, you stop,” as Rickard went on stripping. “Hi, there, no cold watel. Me ketchem hot watel.”