"Is the money lost?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"The long and short of it is, that I couldn't afford that estate
and that money."
"What do you mean?"
"I've given it up."
"Given it up! What for?"
"To come back here."
I took this all in slowly.
"Tim Clare," said I at last, "do you mean to say that you have
given up an English estate and fifty thousand dollars a year to
be a remittance man at five hundred, and a cow-puncher on as much
more?"
"Exactly," said he.
"Tim," I adjured him solemnly, "you are a damn fool!"
"Maybe," he agreed.
"Why did you do it?" I begged.
He walked to the door and looked out across the desert to where
the mountains hovered like soap-bubbles on the horizon. For a
long time he looked; then whirled on me.
"Harry," said he in a low voice, "do you remember the camp we
made on the shoulder of the mountain that night we were caught
out? And do you remember how the dawn came up on the big snow
peaks across the way--and all the canon below us filled with
whirling mists--and the steel stars leaving us one by one? Where
could I find room for that in English paddocks? And do you
recall the day we trailed across the Yuma deserts, and the sun
beat into our skulls, and the dry, brittle hills looked like
papier-mache, and the grey sage-bush ran off into the rise of the
hills; and then came sunset and the hard, dry mountains grew
filmy, like gauze veils of many colours, and melted and glowed
and faded to slate blue, and the stars came out? The English
hills are rounded and green and curried, and the sky is near, and
the stars only a few miles up.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70