“An arm reaching out to one during the storms of life,” she said in a tone that was deep with emotion.
“Let’s not think of it,” said Johnny. “See how the moonlight plays on the river far below. It has painted a path of gold, a path that leads beyond doubt to home and the little cottage you love.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said a moment later, “I think I’ll take a stroll along the ledge. Sort of want—want to think a little.”
For a considerable distance the shelving rocky ledge led upward. Johnny followed it, to find himself at last standing upon a natural platform twenty feet square.
From this point the whole world seemed spread out before him in the moonlight. White stretches of snow, black piles of rock, gleaming ribbons of water that were creeks and rivers, all these he saw as in a dream.
Throwing back his shoulders, he took in three breaths of fresh air. A whirring of wings told that wild ducks were passing. Spring was here. And with spring a young man dreams of work, success, power. The life he had lived during the past few weeks seemed, as he looked at it now, quite purposeless.
He had been helping someone else solve mysteries and run down one or two for himself. But one who spends his life running down mysteries gets nowhere. One must think of his future. True, no one was dependent upon his earnings. Yet, sometime, someone was likely to be. He meant to have a home of his own. Money earned and saved paved the way to such a future.
“And yet—” He saw the face of Gordon Duncan, and the eager, anxious look of the girl who, without perhaps knowing it, had come to depend upon his wisdom, skill and strength.
“Huh!” he grunted. “What’s the good of having a purpose to your every act? What’s youth for if not for adventure?”
Turning his back upon the moon and the shimmering valley below, he went tramping back toward camp.