But Susan, unknowing, fought on. The doctor had not got back to the Porter Ranch before she began arranging to move Low to Sacramento and from there to the Coast. He would get better care, they would find more competent doctors, the change of air would strengthen him. She had it out with Bella, refusing to listen to the older woman's objections, pushing aside all references to her own health. Bella was distracted. "For," as she said afterwards to Glen, "what's the sense of having her go? She can't do anything for him, and it's like as not the three of them'll die instead of one."
There was no reasoning with Susan. The old willfulness was strengthened to a blind determination. She plodded back through the rain to Daddy John and laid the matter before him. As of old he did not dispute with her, only stipulated that he be permitted to go on ahead, make arrangements, and then come back for her. He, too, felt there was no hope, but unlike the others he felt the best hope for his Missy was in letting her do all she could for her husband.
In the evening, sitting by the fire, they talked it over—the stage down the river, the stop at the Fort, then on to Sacramento, and the long journey to the seaport settlement of San Francisco. The sick man seemed asleep, and their voices unconsciously rose, suddenly dropping to silence as he stirred and spoke:
"Are you talking of moving me? Don't. I've had twelve years of it. Let me rest now."
Susan went to him and sat at his feet.
"But we must get you well," she said, trying to smile. "They'll want you in the pits. You must be back there working with them by the spring."
He looked at her with a wide, cold gaze, and said:
"The spring. We're all waiting for the spring. Everything's going to happen then."
A silence fell. The wife sat with drooped head, unable to speak. Daddy John looked into the fire. To them both the Angel of Death seemed to have paused outside the door, and in the stillness they waited for his knock. Only Courant was indifferent, staring at the wall with eyes full of an unfathomable unconcern.
The next day Daddy John left. He was to find the accommodations, get together such comforts as could be had, and return for them. He took a sack of dust and the fleetest horse, and calculated to be back inside two days. As he clattered away he turned for a last look at her, standing in the sunshine, her hand over her eyes. Man or devil would not stop him, he thought, as he buckled to his task, and his seventy years sat as light as a boy's twenty, the one passion of his heart beating life through him.