They looked at each other very carefully, and then shook hands. Clive said: "If you want a handy man in camp, I'd like to go."
"Come on," said Dane, briefly.
Later, looking over together some maps in Dane's rooms, the big blond soldier of fortune glanced up at the younger man, and saw a lean, bronzed visage clamped mute by a lean bronzed jaw; but he also saw two dark eyes fixed on him in the fierce silence of unuttered inquiry. After a moment Dane said very quietly:
"Yes, she was well, and I think happy, when I left New York.... How long is it since you have heard from her?"
"Three years."
"Three years," mused Dane, gazing into space out of his slitted eyes of arctic blue; "yes, that's some little time. Bailey.... She is well—I think I said that.... And very prosperous, and greatly admired ... and happy—I believe."
The other waited.
Dane picked up a linen map, looked at it, fiddled with the corner. Then, carelessly: "She is not married," he said.... "Here's the Huallaga River as I located it four years ago. Seljan and O'Higgins were making for it, I believe.... That red crayon circle over there marks the habitat of the Uta fly. It's worse than the Tsetse. If anybody is hunting death—esta aquí!... Here is the Putumayo district. Hell lies
up here, just above it.... Here's Iquitos, and here lies Para, three thousand miles away.... Were you going to say something?"
But if Clive had anything to say he seemed to find no words to say it. And he only folded his arms on the table's edge and looked down at the stained and crumpled map.