"I'm able to work," replied Sam. "I want to work."
"All right!" agreed Ed cheerfully. "You can hoe the garden. I'll go to the piny ridge and chop."
All day Sam kept himself doggedly at work, though as soon as Ed disappeared he had to fight the impulse to drop everything and fly farther. It did not matter where he went, so he kept moving. It seemed to him that only in movement was any escape to be had from the weight pressing on his brain. He wanted to be alone. In his disorganized state of nerves even Ed's friendliness was a kind of torture.
Nevertheless, when night came, another reaction set in, and he elected to sleep with Ed because he could not face such another night alone. They lay down side by side in their blankets. Ed babbled on as inconsequentially as a child. He required no answers.
"We'll build a two-room house so's you can be by yourself when you want. Two men living together get on each other's nerves sometimes, though both are good fellows, and friends, too. Begin to grouse and snarl like man and wife. Why, up here they tell of a man who up and murdered his partner for no reason but he was tired looking at him.
"Afterward we will build you a house of your own, so you can hold your land proper. Expect there'll be quite a rush next spring. This year most of them is stopping by Caribou Lake. But I want a river. I love a flowing river at my door; it seems to bring you new thoughts. This river is navigable for six hundred miles up and down. Some day we'll see the steamboats puffing in front here. I'll put out a wharf for them to land at.
"And you and me's got the best piece of land the whole way! Eighteen inches of black loam! We'll be rich men before we die. Wheat ought to be the best. When others come around us we will put in a little mill to grind the crop. The company would buy all our flour. What do you think of that for a scheme, eh?... Bless my soul, he's dropped off!"
In the middle of the night Sam awoke to find the moon shining in his face through the open door of the tent. He had had a real sleep. He felt better. He was irresistibly drawn to look outside.
In the pale sky the great, full moon shone with an extraordinary transparency. The field sloping down to the water was powdered with silver dust. The river was like a steel shield with a bar of shining gold athwart it.
On the other side the heights crouched like black beasts at the feet of the moon. The night seemed to be holding its breath under the spell of beauty. Only a subtle murmur arose from the moving river.