Quick Action Part 45

She coloured, cast a swift glance at him, saw that his att.i.tude was perfectly respectful and sympathetic, and said:

"Yes, I was horribly afraid."

"Did anything annoy you?"

"S-something bellowed out there in the swamp----" She shuddered unaffectedly at the recollection.

"A bull-alligator," he remarked.

"What?"

"Yes," he nodded, "it is terrifying, but they let you alone. I once heard one bellow on the Tomoka when I was a boy."

After a while she said with tremulous lips:

"There seem to be snakes here, too."

"Didn't you expect any?"

"Mr. Munsell said there were not any."

"Did he?"

"Not," she explained resolutely, "that the presence of snakes would have deterred me. They frighten me terribly, but--I would have come just the same."

"You are sheer pluck," he said.

"I don't know.... I am very poor.... There seemed to be a chance.... I took it----" Tears sprang to her eyes again, and she brushed them away impatiently.

"Yes," she said, "the only way is to go on, as you say, Mr. White.

Everything in the world that I have is invested here."

"It is the same with me," he admitted dejectedly.

They looked at each other curiously for a moment.

"Isn't it strange?" she murmured.

"Strange as 'The Journal of Valdez.'... I have an idea. I wonder what you might think of it."

She waited; he reflected for another moment, then, smiling:

"This is a perfectly rotten place for you," he said. "You could not do manual labour here in this swamp under a nearly vertical sun and keep your health for twenty-four hours. I've been in Trinidad. I know a little about the tropics and semi-tropics. Suppose you and I form a company?"

"What?"

"Call it the Valdez Company, or the a.s.sociation of the Maltese Cross,"

he continued cheerfully. "You will do the cooking, washing, housekeeping for two tents, and the mending. I will do the digging and the dynamiting. And we'll go ahead doggedly, and face this thing and see it through to the last ditch. What do you think of it? Your claim as plotted out is no more, no less, valuable than mine. Both claims may be worthless. The chances are that they are absolutely valueless. But there _is_ a chance, too, that we might win out. Shall we try it together?"

She did not answer.

"And," he continued, "if the Maltese cross happens to be included within my claim, I share equally with you. If it chances to lie within your claim, perhaps I might ask a third----"

"Mr. White!"

"Yes?"

"You will take _two_ thirds!"

"What?"

"_Two_ thirds," she repeated firmly, "because your heavier labour ent.i.tles you to that proportion!"

"My dear Miss Sandys, you are unworldly and inexperienced in your generosity----"

"So are you! The idea of your modestly venturing to ask a _third_! And offering me a _half_ if the Maltese cross lie inside your own territory!

That is not the way to do business, Mr. White!"

She had become so earnest in her admonition, so charmingly emphatic, that he smiled in spite of himself.

She flushed, noticing this, and said: "Altruism is a luxury in business matters; selfishness of the justifiable sort a necessity. Who will look out for your interests if you do not?"

"_You_ seem to be doing it."

Her colour deepened: "I am only suggesting that you do not make a foolish bargain with me."

"Which proves," he said, "that you are not much better at business than am I. Otherwise you'd have taken me up."

"I'm a very good business woman," she insisted, warmly, "but I'm too much of the other kind of woman to be unfair!"

"Commercially," he said, "we both are sadly behind the times. To-day the world is eliminating its appendix; to-morrow it will be operated on for another obsolete and annoying appendage. I mean its conscience," he added, so seriously that for a moment her own gravity remained unaltered. Then, like a faint ray of sunlight, across her face the smile glimmered. It was a winning smile, fresh and unspoiled as the lips it touched.

"You _will_ take half--won't you?" she asked.

"Yes, I will. Is it a bargain?"

"If you care to make it so, Mr. White."

He said he did, and they shook hands very formally. Then he went out and pitched his tent beside hers, set it in order, lugged up the remainder of his equipment, buried the jars of spring water, and, entering his tent, changed to flannel shirt, sun-helmet, and khaki.

XXIX

A little later he called to her: she emerged from her tent, and together they sat down on the edge of the Causeway, with the two maps spread over their knees.

That both maps very accurately represented the topography of the immediate vicinity there could be no doubt; the only discrepancy seemed to lie in the situation of the Maltese cross. On White's map the cross fell well within his half of Lot 210; in Jean Sandys' map it was situated between her half of 210 and 220.