which hasn't a thing in the world, and if I'm any judge of
things that kiddie was the whole sun, moon, and stars of his life. I'm
thinking of that kiddie now. And I'm thinking of him alone. You're
thinking of a suffering world. If there's twenty-five thousand dollars
for a half pint of that dope the money belongs to the helpless kid of
the man who's given his life to locate it. We don't need an outfit to
get the neches' secret. We don't need a thing. There's just one man
knows how to locate the place where Marcel Brand lived, and that's me.
There's not a living soul, not even Julyman, or Oolak, or An-ina, could
ever make it without me. And I tell you right here there's no one ever
learns it from me. That secret is for Marcel, and I figure to hand it to
him, and all that's coming out of it. That's why I've told you these
things. Now you'll understand what's in my mind when I say that I'm
coming along back when I've settled with Garstaing, or failed to locate
him. If I've settled with him I'll be in a hurry. And I'm going up
north--north where no one can ever hope to follow me, with An-ina, and
Marcel, and maybe Julyman and Oolak again, and I'm going to work this
thing for the rest of my life for--Marcel. It's his, all of it. And
what's left over is for the suffering humanity you're thinking about.
See, here, Doc, you and me, we aren't any sort of twin brothers of
friends. We haven't been raised together. I hadn't a notion of you till
I took charge of this station. But I know a man--a real man. And if
you've the guts I reckon you have, then you'll help me to do the thing
that's going to shut the gates of the hell that's opened to swallow me
up."

"You mean the care of the boy and An-ina?"

"Till I get back. Then you'll hand 'em over without--a kick."

Ross ran his great fingers through his hair, while he sought the last
glow of sunset for inspiration.

"It's a hell of a country--up there," he protested, after a moment. He
was thinking of the child. He was thinking of Millie's possible protests
at sacrificing the child to the terrors of Unaga.

"He was bred there." Steve's eyes were urgent. "It's handing to him the
things his father would have wanted him to have. Think, Doc. By every
moral right the 'Adresol' secret is his. It cost him a father. It cost
him a mother. It would have cost him his life--a white man's life--if it
hadn't been for the hand of Providence sending me along to him. Besides,
it's all here, Doc,"