Part 29 (2/2)

Again encountering silence, he turned away, hurt. This churlish att.i.tude on the part of one returning to G.o.d's country on one of G.o.d's own mornings surprised and wounded him.

To him all was right with the world. He had breakfasted well; he was smoking a good cigar; and he was strong in the knowledge that he had done well by the firm this trip and that bouquets were due to be handed to him in the office on lower Broadway. He was annoyed with Kirk for having cast even a tiny cloud upon his contentment.

He communicated his feelings to the third officer, who happened to come on deck at that moment.

”Say, who _is_ that guy?” he asked complainingly. ”The big son of a gun leaning on the rail. Seems like he'd got a hangover this morning.

Is he deaf and dumb or just plain grouchy?”

The third officer eyed Kirk's back with sympathy.

”I shouldn't worry him, Freddie,” he said. ”I guess if you had been up against it like him you'd be shy on the small talk. That's a fellow called Winfield. They carried him on board at Colon. He was about all in. Got fever in Colombia, inland at the mines, and nearly died. His pal did die. Ever met Hank Jardine?”

”Long, thin man?”

The other nodded.

”One of the best. He made two trips with us.”

”And he's dead?”

”Died of fever away back in the interior, where there's nothing much else except mosquitoes. He and Winfield went in there after gold.”

”Did they get any?” asked the drummer, interested.

The third officer spat disgustedly over the rail.

”You ask Winfield. Or, rather, don't, because I guess it's not his pet subject. He told me all about it when he was getting better. There was gold there, all right, in chunks. It only needed to be dug for. And somebody else did the digging. Of all the skin games! It made me pretty hot under the collar, and it wasn't _me_ that was stung.

”Out there you can't buy land if you're a foreigner; you have to lease it from the natives. Poor old Hank leased his bit, all right, and when he'd got to his claim he found somebody else working on it. It seemed there had been a flaw in his agreement and the owners had let it over his head to these other guys, who had slipped them more than what Hank had done.”

”What did he do?”

”He couldn't do anything. They were the right side of the law, or what they call law out there. There was nothing to do except beat it back again three hundred miles to the coast. That's where they got the fever which finished Hank. So you can understand,” concluded the third officer, ”that Mr. Winfield isn't in what you can call a sunny mood. If I were you, I'd go and talk to someone else, if conversation's what you need.”

Kirk stood motionless at the rail, thinking. It was not what was past that occupied his thoughts, as the third officer had supposed; it was the future.

The forlorn hope had failed; he was limping back to Ruth wounded and broken. He had sent her a wireless message. She would be at the dock to meet him. How could he face her? Fate had been against him, it was true, but he was in no mood to make excuses for himself. He had failed.

That was the beginning and the end of it. He had set out to bring back wealth and comfort to her, and he was returning empty-handed.

That was what the immediate future held, the meeting with Ruth. And after? His imagination was not equal to the task of considering that.

He had failed as an artist. There was no future for him there. He must find some other work. But he was fit for no other work. He had no training. What could he do in a city where keenness of compet.i.tion is a tradition? It would be as if an unarmed man should attack a fortress.

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