Fatherly pride, exultation, triumph, swung John Carrington up on his elbow from his pillows in a certain fierce joy, and something glistened on his cheek—something that pain and fatigue and loneliness had never crystaled there.
“I have a son to stand by me,” he said, and it was the dignity of a king to the crown prince.
The leonine old head was lifted proudly, and the hand that he stretched out might have held a scepter.
Then reaction of the strain came swiftly, and the lad leaped to him, as he dropped back limp and white against the pillows, with a sudden film drawn over the eyes so lately keen of sight, and the rushing of many waters in the ears that had heard so happily.
CHAPTER III.
Yellow Dog was having the time of its life.
It was, to use a local idiom, passing out a new line of talk every day.
What this sudden access of interest meant to an isolated small town which existed solely on account of its two mines one would have to live in Yellow Dog to understand.
The Tray-Spot and the Star were at opposite ends of the town’s main street, each a local fetish in its way to the miners.
Underfoot everywhere the soft red hematite ore stained everything that it touched.