CHAPTER XV
BETWEEN TWO ON JERUSALEM
“So he didn’t have no doctor but a bowl o’ ginger tea,
And it didn’t seem to help him, not so far as we could see.”
—Gettin’ Larry Home.
When they came out upon the bare granite, long after mid-day, they fell upon their faces, and lay there without speaking or the desire to speak. They did not open their smarting eyes.
Over and over again Wade heard a dull rumble which his stricken senses failed to understand. But when a hollow boom reverberated among the hills and jarred the granite under his face he sat up. He saw the purple flash shiver across the swaying smoke, heard the splitting crack of the bolt, and felt a raindrop on his face.
“Thank God, Mr. Barrett, it has come at last! The rain!” he shouted. And the timber baron staggered to his feet, and turned a bloodshot gaze on the panorama of blazing forest and sheeting heavens. Then he looked at Wade, blinking stupidly and searching his soul for words.
“I haven’t got the language, Mr. Wade—” he began. But the young man broke upon his stammering speech.