They fell to discussing their arrangements.
"Get on the steamboat after dinner to-morrow," she said. "When you see me make out you don' know me at all. At Gisborne I will tell you what to do. Bring only blankets. I have a mosquito tent for you. I have plenty grub and everything."
Ralph passed the little moosehide bag to her.
She quickly put her hands behind her. "You must take it," she said. "I not want you work for nothing."
"I have taken it, see?" said Ralph, with a smile. "Now I pay it back to you for taking me on a trip. I've only been waiting for the chance to make a trip."
Once more their eyes met and contended, and again Ralph prevailed. She took the bag of gold-dust and put it back within her dress.
When she went, and Ralph was left alone in his tiny office, he sat down and endeavoured to put his thoughts in order. Straightway the soberer half of him asserted its rights, and half persuaded him that what had happened during the last hour was no more than a dream. It was too fantastic, too preposterous, for a matter-of-fact person to credit for a moment. That such a thing should happen to him, Ralph Cowdray, the patientless medico! But he looked down at his desk, and there in the cracks of the boards were lodged several shining yellow grains. The matter-of-fact Ralph retired defeated, and the dreamy Ralph had full sway.
"Gad! what eyes!" he thought. "She can't be more than twenty-one or so, and she looks as if she had sounded all the depths of life!"
The sight of his watch finally reminded Ralph of dinner. Dinner brought Dan to mind, and the thought of Dan recalled the subject of their jocular argument which Nahnya had interrupted. Ralph fell back in his chair amazed and dreamy.
"Romance!" he thought. "It did come in the door with her!"