And she had affectionately patted and stroked the warm flesh that was ready to help them in their emergency.
The man had had a better reward than he had looked for. He had found his reply awaiting him at the mail office. A reply that he had never hoped to get until the heads of the Mountain Oil Corporation had held an important meeting. He realised that it must have been despatched within a day of the receipt of his report. It was a clear, definite, decided reply such as pleased him mightily. It was from the chairman of the Board of Directors.
“Complete prospect earliest possible date. Sailing in ten weeks. Be with you early fall. Make all preparations for big forward move. Prospect for large territorial concession. Prepare everything. Big money.”
The very brevity of the message was its greatest joy to McLagan. It was, he felt, the message of a big man unfettered by any smallness of consideration. His interpretation of it was no less big. To him it meant go right ahead, grab all you can, and to hell with the cost. And the engineer, being the man he was, needed no further urging. So he had spared his ponies on the home trail less than usual.
He reached the plateau just as the sunset was at the height of its glory beyond the bay. The waters were dead flat, a mirror of liquid fire under the radiant light. Even the ugly, iron-bound coast was rendered something gracious for once in its ruthless existence.
He had planned as he came along, absorbed in the prospect that lay ahead of him. The whole thing was quite simple. Everything must be got ready. He must set out on a big trip round with Peter. They must make a broad survey. He would set out with Sasa to join Peter at the camp. He would close up his shanty and quit it for the summer, or, at least, until the Directors had completed their inspection. Early fall. They would be with him in early fall to settle the final details. That was nearly three months from now. Yes. He could get everything ready for them by that time.
Sasa took the hard-blowing team as it drew up at the log barn, and McLagan walked round the ponies and helped unhitch them.
“Turn ’em loose, boy,” he said. “Let ’em get a roll, and feed ’em hay. Don’t water ’em till they cool. Then set ’em in the barn and push their blankets on. Feed ’em corn in two hours.”
He passed on to the door of his hut. But he paused on the way. As he stepped out into the open the wreck of the Limpet came into his view. In a moment he had forgotten everything else as the memory of his last visit to the derelict came back to him.
Somehow the whole episode had been swept out of his mind by the text of the message he had received from his own people. It could not have been otherwise in a man of his temper and purpose. He was at the threshold of a tremendous achievement which years of infinite labour had brought to his hand. Peter Loby was the oil man, the expert creature who dealt in drills, and pipes, and the immediate localities for his operations. But it was McLagan whose knowledge and vision searched the territory. It was he who had first realised the possibilities of that black belt of territory which he had sent Loby to explore. His whole horizon was bounded by such prospecting, just as Peter’s was by oil. Yes, the news that these men of finance were ready to put themselves and their money behind his work had completely cleared his healthy brain of the cobwebs which his last visit to the Limpet had woven there.