“Though it isn’t my fault, sir,” protested Simmons, “the master is not doing right by himself in putting me here.”
I sank down into my chair and looked over water and hills with the wondering eyes of a man who has come back to the world after a long absence. And I found it good.
The Wanderer lay in the same spot where Pierce and I had found her on that dark night, Wilson still being too weak to navigate her and there being nobody else capable of the task. The water about us was blue and still, and the birch and pine of the shores were mirrored in it to the smallest shade and detail. Back from the bay rose the age-old hills, step after step of them, growing higher and higher, until they became the great mountain-range which shut the valley in from the rest of the world. And the sun was so bright that I closed my eyes, and the primal peace soaked me to the bone.
Betty came and went, and George; and they made a splendid pair as they rounded the decks on their promenade. They went canoeing together, and Old Slade swore, and we agreed with him, that “there couldn’t be no purtier sight than that on God’s green earth.”
Then George would join us under the awning, and Slade and Harris and he would talk over the development of their property. For George was going in partnership with them. The free pay dirt of their mine was about played out and machinery and labor to tear the hills to pieces were necessary for the further working of the find.
“And what about the bones up at Petroff Sound?” I asked.
“No use—not necessary now,” George replied. “Besides, this is easier, and nearer to Fifth Avenue, and these last days have been so strenuous that I’m about filled up.”
I thought over what he said.
Not necessary to go to Petroff Sound now. No, of course not. Betty had decided that gold-mining was more fun. And why go on to Petroff Sound when they had already come to an understanding.
George did not display quite the elation he should have done under the circumstances, I thought; but he was so blasé that even the winning of Betty wouldn’t keep him animated for long.