When they were out of sight Jack flung himself full length in the grass with his face in his arms. Now he knew. This pain in his breast was the thing they called love. Blind fool that he had been, he had dismissed her with the light term "native girl," and had not seen that it was a woman in a thousand, the woman his manhood had always been unconsciously yearning for, generous, true and lovely. She rode away, dragging his heart after her. He was tied fast. The pain of it was insupportable.
"Good God! how did I ever get into it!" he groaned. "What a price to pay for a kiss in the dark!"
XIII
THE RETREAT
Two days passed at Camp Trangmar. There was little outward evidence of the several storms that agitated the breasts of the company. The men left Jack severely alone, and Jack for his own part took care to keep out of Linda's way. He made it his business to watch Garrod, visiting him night and day in Jean Paul's tent, careless of the owner. There was no change in Garrod's condition. Jean Paul sheered off at Jack's approach like the wary animal he was. Meanwhile Sir Bryson, Baldwin Ferrie, and the Indians were busy staking out additional claims along Tetrahedron creek.
On the third morning the camp was plunged into a fresh agitation. Jack and Humpy Jull were breakfasting by the cook-fire, Jack looking like a sulky young Olympian in the morning sunlight, and Humpy naïvely trying to cheer him up.
"Gosh!" he said. "If I had your looks and figger I wouldn't care about nothin'."
Jack, who disdained the false modesty that disclaims such tributes with a simper, merely held out his plate for porridge.
Suddenly Vassall came quickly across the grass. His face was pale and streaked from the effects of nervous emotion.
"Sir Bryson wants you," he said to Jack.