“I wonder,” she began again, staring up into the dark, “if Charlie took that frying-pan off with him when he went?”
“I don't know. He probably did.”
“It was the only thing we had to cook abalones in. Make me think to look into the galley to-morrow....This ground's as hard as nails, for all your blankets....Well, good-night, mate; I'm going to sleep.”
“Good-night, Moran.”
Three hours later Wilbur, who had not closed his eyes, sat up and looked at Moran, sleeping quietly, her head in a pale glory of hair; looked at her, and then around him at the silent, deserted land.
“I don't know,” he said to himself. “Am I a right-minded man and a thoroughbred, or a mush-head, or merely a prudent, sensible sort of chap that values his skin and bones? I'd be glad to put a name to myself.” Then, more earnestly he added: “Do I love her too much, or not enough, or love her the wrong way, or how?” He leaned toward her, so close that he could catch the savor of her breath and the smell of her neck, warm with sleep. The sleeve of the coarse blue shirt was drawn up, and it seemed to him as if her bare arm, flung out at full length, had some sweet aroma of its own. Wilbur drew softly back.
“No,” he said to himself decisively; “no, I guess I am a thoroughbred after all.” It was only then that he went to sleep.
When he awoke the sea was pink with the sunrise, and one of the bay heads was all distorted and stratified by a mirage. It was hot already. Moran was sitting a few paces from him, braiding her hair.
“Hello, Moran!” he said, rousing up; “how long have you been up?”
“Since before sunrise,” she said; “I've had a bath in the cove where the creek runs down. I saw a jack-rabbit.”