Part 46 (1/2)

”They're often too wet and pulpy to read, and now and then the sporting natives bag the mail-carrier. I've known them try to stalk the white officer responsible for too drastic reforms.”

Ethel regarded Murray with heightened interest. There was something that both amused and touched her in the thought of the lonely man, shut in by the black, steamy forest, spending his evenings reading philosophy.

”I wonder,” she said, ”whether you find any practical application of the great thinkers' theories?”

”One old favorite of mine strikes me as rather grim and singularly hard to please; but so far as I can judge, he hits the mark now and then. It's a pet theme of his that only that which stands on justice, and is better than what it displaces, can endure. You see that worked out in a primitive country like West Africa.”

”But isn't the progress of civilization a.s.sisted by machine-guns and followed by gin?”

”A fair shot!” laughed Olcott. ”Our rule's often faulty, but it's a good deal better than the natives had before. Murray knows a creek that mutilated corpses used to drift down after each big palaver and celebration of Ju-Ju rites.”

”I suppose he had some trouble in putting a stop to it?”

Olcott broke into a grim smile.

”One would imagine so, from what I heard of the matter. An army of savages with flintlocks took the bush on the other side; there were about two dozen colored Mohammedan soldiers, a white lieutenant, carried in a hammock because he was too ill to walk, and a civil officer who wasn't authorized to fight, to carry out the reforms.

Though it didn't look encouraging at the start, they were effected.”

”Ah,” said Ethel, ”one could be proud of things like that! After all, Mr. Murray's philosopher may be right. It's cheering to find a man ready to put his belief in justice to the test.”

”There's one,” said Olcott, indicating Andrew. ”I shouldn't wonder if it costs him something.”

The group broke up and some time later Andrew walked home with Ethel.

The distance was not great, the road was dry, and a half moon threw down a silvery light. Thin mist filled the hollows, the murmur of the river rose from a deep valley, and the air was soft.

”It's very open weather,” Ethel remarked. ”I suppose it's different in Canada?”

”In the part I'm best acquainted with the thermometer is now registering forty degrees below zero, and it would need a charge of dynamite to break the ice on the lakes.”

”Prospecting must be stern work,” said Ethel speculatively. ”It's curious that you haven't thought it worth while to give me an account of your adventures. Won't you do so?”

”Well, you mustn't blame me if you find them tedious. As a matter of fact, I haven't said much about them to anybody yet.”

He began with a few rather involved explanations, but his style became clearer as he followed up the main thread of the tale, and Ethel listened with close interest.

”So it was the Frobishers who saved you by sending off a rescue party!” she exclaimed when he had finished. ”But how did they know you were in danger?”

”That's more than I can tell. Of course, we were behind our time, but that doesn't account for all. I've a suspicion that Miss Frobisher had some means of finding out the most serious risk we ran.”

Ethel thought this indicated that Geraldine took a marked interest in the man. She wondered if it had occurred to him.

”And you believe the fellow really meant to starve you?” she said.

”He didn't intend us to find the food. It comes to the same thing.”

”But his conduct seems so inhuman! Surely, he would not have let you die of hunger with no better reason than to prevent you from interfering with his contract?”

Andrew hesitated. He could not tell her that Mappin might have been actuated by jealousy; modesty prevented his doing so.