district. Does that convey anything to you?"
"Not a thing."
"The workings are three hundred miles inland. Just three hundred miles
of pure Hades. You can get all the fevers you ever heard of, and a few
more, I got most of them last trip."
"I thought you were looking pretty bad."
"I ought to be. I've swallowed so much quinine since I saw you last
that my ears are buzzing still. And then there are the insects. They
all bite. Some bite worse than others, but not much. Darn it! even the
butterflies bite out there. Every animal in the country has some other
animal constantly chasing it until a white man comes along, when they
call a truce and both chase him. And the vegetation is so thick and
grows so quickly that you have to cut down the jungle about the
workings every few days or so to avoid being swamped by it. Otherwise,"
finished Hank, refilling his pipe and lighting it, "the place is a
pretty good kind of summer resort."
"And you're going back to it? Back to the quinine and the beasts and
the butterflies?"
"Sure. The gold runs up to twenty dollars the cubic yard and is worth
eighteen dollars an ounce."
"When are you going?"
"I'm in no hurry. This year, next year, some time, never. No, not
never. Call it some time."
"And you want me to come, too?"
"I would give half of whatever there is in the mine to have you come.
But things being as they are, well, I guess we can call it off. Is
there any chance in the world, Kirk, of your ever ceasing to be a
bloated capitalist? Could any of your stocks go back on you?"
"I doubt it. They're pretty gilt-edged, I fancy, though I've never
studied the question of stocks. My little gold-mine isn't in the same
class with yours, but it's as solid as a rock, and no fevers and
insects attached to it, either."
* * * * *
And now the gold-mine had proved of less than rock-like solidity. The
most gilt-edged of all the stocks had failed. The capitalist had become
in one brief day the struggling artist.
Hank's proposal seemed a good deal less fantastic now to Kirk as he
prepared for his second onslaught, the grand attack, on the stronghold
of those who bought art with gold.
Chapter XII A Climax
One afternoon, about two weeks later, Kirk, returning to the studio
from an unprofitable raid into the region of the dealers, found on the
table a card bearing the name of Mrs. Robert Wilbur. This had been
crossed out, and beneath it, in a straggly hand, the name Miss Wilbur
had been written.
The phenomenon of a caller at the cell of the two hermits was so
strange that he awaited Ruth's arrival with more than his customary
impatience. She would be able to identify the visitor. George Pennicut,
questioned on the point, had no information of any value to impart. A
very pretty young lady she was, said George, with what you might call a
lively manner. She had seemed disappointed at finding nobody at home.
No, she had left no message.
Ruth, arriving a few moments later, was met by Kirk with the card in
his hand.
"Can you throw any light on this?" he said. "Who is Miss Wilbur, who
has what you might call a lively manner and appears disappointed when
she does not find us at home?"
Ruth looked at the card.
"Sybil Wilbur? I wonder what she wants."
"Who is she? Let's get that settled first."
"Oh, she's a girl I used to know. I haven't seen her for two years. I
thought she had forgotten my existence."
"Call her up on the phone. If we don't solve this mystery we shan't
sleep to-night. It's like Robinson Crusoe and the footprint."
Ruth went to the telephone. After a short conversation she turned to
Kirk with sparkling eyes and the air of one with news to impart.
"Kirk! She wants you to paint her portrait!"
"What!"
"She's engaged to Bailey! Just got engaged! And the first thing she
does is to insist on his letting her come to you for her portrait,"
Ruth bubbled with laughter. "It's to be a birthday present for Bailey,
and Bailey has got to pay for it. That's so exactly like Sybil."
"I hope the portrait will be. She's taking chances."
"I think it's simply sweet of her. She's a real friend."
"At fairly long intervals, apparently. Did you say you had not seen her
for two years?"
"She is an erratic little thing with an awfully good heart. I feel
touched at her remembering us. Oh, Kirk, you must do a simply wonderful
portrait, something that everybody will talk about, and then our
fortune will be made! You will become the only painter that people will
go to for their portraits."
Kirk did not answer. His experiences of late had developed in him an
unwonted mistrust of his powers. To this was added the knowledge that,
except for an impressionist study of Ruth for private exhibition only,
he had never attempted a portrait. To be called upon suddenly like this
to show his powers gave him much the same feeling which he had
experienced when called upon as a child to recite poetry before an
audience. It was a species of stage fright.
But it was certainly a chance. Portrait-painting was an uncommonly
lucrative line of business. His imagination, stirred by Ruth's, saw
visions of wealthy applicants turned away from the studio door owing to
pressure of work on the part of the famous man for whose services they
were bidding vast sums.
"By Jove!" he said thoughtfully.
Another aspect of the matter occurred to him.
"I wonder what Bailey thinks about it!"
"Oh, he's probably so much in love with her that he doesn't mind what
she does. Besides, Bailey likes you."
"Does he?"
"Oh, well, if he doesn't, he will. This will bring you together."
"I suppose he knows about it?"
"Oh, yes. Sybil said he did. It's all settled. She will be here
to-morrow for the first sitting."
Kirk spoke the fear that was in his mind.
"Ruth, old girl, I'm horribly nervous about this. I am taken with a
sort of second sight. I see myself making a ghastly failure of this job
and Bailey knocking me down and refusing to come across with the
cheque."
"Sybil is bringing the cheque with her to-morrow," said Ruth simply.
"Is she?" said Kirk. "Now I wonder if that makes it worse or better.
I'm trying to think!"
Sybil Wilbur fluttered in next day at noon, a tiny, restless creature
who darted about the studio like a humming-bird. She effervesced with
the joy of life. She uttered little squeaks of delight at everything
she saw. She hugged Ruth, beamed at Kirk, went wild over William
Bannister, thought the studio too cute for words, insisted on being
shown all over it, and talked incessantly.
It was about two o'clock before she actually began to sit, and even
then she was no statue. A thought would come into her small head and
she would whirl round to impart it to Ruth, destroying in a second the
pose which it had taken Kirk ten painful minutes to fix.
Kirk was too amused to be irritated. She was such a friendly little
soul and so obviously devoted to Ruth that he felt she was entitled to
be a nuisance as a sitter. He wondered more and more what weird
principle of selection had been at work to bring Bailey and this
butterfly together. He had never given any deep thought to the study of
his brother-in-law's character; but, from his small knowledge of him,
he would have imagined some one a trifle more substantial and serious
as the ideal wife for him. Life, he conceived, was to Bailey a stately