Everything's turning out marvelously. The oil and
the copper are big, man--big, I tell you. I reckon your five
thousand dollars will be well on the way to half a million. I'm
pretty near there myself."
It was not until later on, when he was alone, that Tavernake
realized with how little interest he listened to his companion's
talk of their success. It was so short a time ago since the
building up of a fortune had been the one aim upon which every
nerve of his body was centered. Curiously enough, now he seemed
to take it as a matter of course.
"On second thoughts, I'll send a tailor round to the hotel,"
Pritchard declared. "I've rooms myself next yours. We can go
out and buy boots and the other things afterwards."
By nightfall, Tavernake's wardrobe was complete. Even Pritchard
regarded him with a certain surprise. He seemed, somehow, to
have gained a new dignity.
"Say, but you look great!" he exclaimed. "They won't believe it
at the meeting to-morrow that you are the man who crossed the
Yolite Mountains and swam the Peraneek River. That's a wonderful
country you were in, Tavernake, after you left the tracks."
They were in Broadway, with the roar of the city in their ears,
and Tavernake, lifting his face starwards, suddenly seemed to
feel the silence once more, the perfume of the pine woods, the
scent of nature herself, freed through all these generations of
any presence of man.
"I'll never keep away from it," he said, softly.
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