"Then ye air doin' mighty well, an' it's the thing that 'u'd make your daddy awful glad ef he only could know. It 'u'd be fulfillin' his own wish. I know it would. I heered him say so onct."
Jerry Swaim's eyes were full of unshed tears. Keenly she remembered when Uncle Cornie had told her the same thing at the doorway of the rose-arbor in beautiful "Eden" in the beautiful June-time. How strange that the same message should come to her again here in the shadow of New Eden inside the doorway of a fisherman's hut. And how strange a thing is life at any time!
"Please don't be unhappy about this." Jerry lifted the money which lay in her lap. "It shall never trouble you."
And then for a brief ten minutes the two talked together, Geraldine Swaim of Philadelphia, and old Fishing Teddy, the Sage Brush hermit.
Joe Thomson, sitting in the gray car, saw Jerry coming through the bushes, her hat in her hand, the summer sunshine on her glorious crown of hair, her face wearing a strange new expression, as if in Fishing Teddy's old shack a revelation of life's realities had come to her and she had found them worthy and beautiful.
Little was said between the two young people until they reached the Thomson ranch-house again and Jerry had halted her car under the shade of an elm growing before the door. Then, turning to Joe, she said:
"You are right about the old Teddy Bear. He isn't a thief. I don't know what he is, but I do know what he isn't. Since you know so much about my coming here already, may I tell you a few more things? I want to talk to somebody who will understand me."
Jerry did not ask herself why she should choose Joe Thomson for such a confidence. She went no deeper than to feel that something about Joe was satisfying, and that was sufficient. Henceforth with York and the hotel-keeper she must be on her guard. Joe was different.
In the half-hour that followed the two became fast friends. And when the little gray runabout sped up the long trail toward New Eden Joe Thomson watched it until it was only a dust-spot on the divide that tops the slopes down to Kingussie Creek. He knew now the whole story of Laura's purse and her suspicions, of Ponk's offer of help, and he shrewdly guessed that the pompous little man had met a firm check to anything more than mere friendship. For Jerry's comfort, he refuted the possibility of the Macphersons' harboring a doubt regarding her honesty.
"A mere remark of the moment. We all make them," he assured her.