“If only Johnny were here!” he said to himself.
“How much time?”
“Sixty days.”
“Ninety, if you need it. Quintanaroo can wait long; any land can afford to wait a long time for an honest man.
“And now,” he said, rising, “I think we must go.”
He shook hands solemnly with the boy. His daughter gave Pant a friendly smile. Then they were away over the trail to their boat.
Two hours later Pant might have been found still sitting before his rough slab table, and still he appeared to be in a trance.
He was fighting, fighting an impulse to run away, to dash down the river in his motor boat and away to the Belize radio to flash the tremendous news to a man who had financed their little enterprise up Rio Hondo.
Then, into his mind there came a picture in an old book of fables; a picture of a dog standing on a bridge over a river. In his mouth was a piece of meat. In the river was a reflection of the meat much larger than the meat itself.
“The dog dropped the meat to snap at its reflection, and lost all,” Pant mused. “I hope these concessions are not mere reflections of possible wealth; but I know that our fifty thousand feet of red mahogany logs are not. To-morrow we must get out another five thousand feet.”