Up and down the plain, businesslike office McPherson was tramping when Conning was announced.
“Oh! come in, come in!” called McPherson. “You can better understand this than some. I’ve had a devil of a day. One confounded thing after another to take the soul out of me. And now this letter from old Jim White!”
Conning started. It had now been years since Pine Cone had touched his thought sharply.
“What’s the matter with White?” he asked.
“Look out of the window!”
Truedale did so, and into the wall-like snow which had been falling all day.
“They’ve been having that in the mountains for weeks. Trails blotted out, folk hiding like beasts, and that good old chap, White, took this time to break his leg. There he lay for a whole week, damn it all! Two of his dogs died—he, himself, almost starved. Managed to crawl to the food while there was any, and then some one ploughed through to get Jim to organize a hanging or some other trifling thing, and found him! Good Lord, Truedale, what they need down there is roads! roads! Roads over which folk can travel to one another and become human. That’s all the world needs anyway!” Here McPherson stopped in front of Truedale and glared as if about to put the blame of impeded traffic up to him. “Roads over which folk can travel to one another. See here, you’re looking for some excuse to get rid of your damned money. Why don’t you build roads?”
“Roads?” Truedale did not know whether to laugh or take his man seriously.
“Yes, roads. I’m going down to Jim. I haven’t much money; I’ve made a good deal, but somehow I never seem able to be caught with the goods on me. But what little I’ve got now goes to Jim for the purpose of forging a connecting link between him and the Centre. But here’s a job for you. You can grasp this need. I’ve got a boy in the hospital; he caved in from over-study. Trying to get an education while starving himself to death and doing without underclothes. You ought to know how to hew a short cut to him, Truedale; you did some hacking through underbrush yourself. If I didn’t believe folk would travel to one another over roads, if there were roads, I’d go out and cut my throat.”
The big man, troubled and as full of sympathy as a tender woman, paused in his strides and ejaculated: