Up here I learned to hate it more than
ever. I was completely happy. And then--"
He had refolded the map, and drew another from the bundle of
papers. It was drawn in pencil.
"And then, Greggy," he went on, smoothing out this map where the
other had been, "I struck my chance. It fairly clubbed me into
recognizing it. It came in the middle of the night, and I sat up
with a camp-fire laughing at me through the flap in my tent,
stunned by the knockout it had given me. It seemed, at first, as
though a gold-mine had walked up and laid itself down at my feet,
and I wondered how there could be so many silly fools in this
world of ours. Take a look at that map, Greggy. What do you see?"
Gregson had listened like one under a spell. It was one of his
careless boasts that situations could not faze him, that he was
immune to outward betrayals of sensation. This seeming
indifference--his light-toned attitude in the face of most serious
affairs would have made a failure of him in many things. But his
tense interest did not hide itself now. A cigarette remained
unlighted between his fingers. His eyes never took themselves for
an instant from his companion's face. Something that Whittemore
had not yet said thrilled him.
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