"Now you're coming down to business, Phil," he exclaimed. "I've
been waiting with the patience of Job--or of little Bobby Tuckett,
if you remember him, who began courting Minnie Sheldon seven years
ago--and married her the day after I got your letter. I was too
busy figuring out what you hadn't written to go to the wedding. I
tried to read between the lines, and fell down completely. I've
been thinking all the way up from Le Pas, and I'm still at sea.
You called. I came. What's up?"
"It's going to sound a little mad--at first, Greggy," chuckled
Whittemore, lighting his pipe. "It's going to give your esthetic
tastes a jar. Look here!"
He seized Gregson by the arm and led him to the door.
The cold northern sky was brilliant with stars. The cabin, its
logs half smothered in dying masses of verdure which had climbed
about it during the summer, was built on the summit of one of the
wind-cropped ridges which are called mountains in the far north.
Into that north swept infinite wilderness, white and gray where
the starlit tops of the spruce rose up at their feet, black in the
distance. From somewhere out of it there came the low, weeping
monotone of surf beating on a shore. Philip, with one hand on
Gregson's shoulder, pointed with the other into the lonely
desolation which they were facing.
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