CHAPTER XXXIII
GONE!
THE sun got up and struck the hills of Sinaloa, the plains of sagebrush, rock and sand, the sea.
The Bay of Whales, lit from end to end and shouting with gulls, faced an ocean destitute of sign of ship or sail.
George awoke in the tent and gazed for a moment lazily at the honey-coloured patch on the sail cloth above his head, where the sun was laying a finger. He heard the waves on the beach and the crying of the gulls, the wind through the tent-opening came fresh and pure, and he knew it was good to be alive. Alive in a clean world where the wind was a person and the sun the chief character after God’s earth and sea. Then Candon came blowing into his mind and he remembered the incidents of the night before and how B. C. had gone off the handle over something, he could not guess what, and how he had planned to leave them that day. All this he remembered in the first few seconds of waking—and then he recognised that Candon was not in the tent and that his blankets were carefully rolled up and stowed for the day. He must have got up early and gone out; probably he was building the fire.
He gave the sleeping Hank a dig, and woke him up.
“Hank,” said George.
“Yep?”
“I’ve been thinking of B. C.”
“What’s the matter with B. C.?”