ey came to anything resembling a discussion of
the change which was growing more and more noticeable in the bearing of
the men at Thirty-Mile. As far as all outward evidence was concerned,
Steve seemed to ignore it utterly, to retreat oftener and oftener
behind his habit of silence which even Fat Joe, after several
unsuccessful, garrulous attempts, gave over trying to penetrate. And
even Garry, who had greater respect for the other man's preoccupation
because he felt that he understood it better, tried also to hide all
evidence of the bitterness which it was re-awakening in him. Yet, at
that, Garry's surmise was erroneous; his conclusion wide of the mark.

For it was not the hunger of his own heart; it was neither intolerance
of restraint nor mental rebellion against the duties which were holding
him so close up-river, that had caused the chief engineer of the East
Coast work to withdraw so completely within himself, although, many
times each day, his eyes did wander toward the south and Morrison.
During that bleak period, as Garry had guessed, Steve's thoughts were
often of Barbara, but they were not sombre thoughts. The very hardness
of his life schooling had taught him too well how little of wisdom
there is in fretting against the day of action, when that day cannot be
hurried nor controlled. Steadfastedly he refused to let himself brood.
If he could not go to her he would not, nevertheless, allow himself to
dwell upon that impossibility. Instead his spirit ranged ahead to a
hopeful, more or less indefinite and not too distant date when his
absence might not seem to threaten too great a cost to those whose
matters lay in his trust.

Garry's conclusion, borne of his own lesson in doubt, was wide of the
mark. It was not heartache. The thoughts Steve had of her were his
serenest thoughts, those days during which his body labored
prodigiously and his brain groped for the solution of an affair that
had not been his own, until he had chosen to make it so. It was the
problem of Garrett Devereau which lay behind Stephen O'Mara's hours of
gravity--that perplexing problem which Miriam Burrell, level of eye and
brave of tongue, had brought to him for help. And in the end, as is
usually the way, events of themselves finally gave Steve the
opportunity to say all that he knew could not be introduced by him.
Time showed the way just when he had reached the point of acknowledging
that such an opportunity was beyond his ow