"Perkins," he said, with some effort, "I've thought and said some
hard things about you."
"Naturally enough," murmured the other.
"Do you want me to apologize?"
The scientist stared. "Do you want me to thank you for to-night's
work?" he countered.
"No."
"Well--"
"All right."
The two men, different in every quality except that of essential
manhood, smiled at each other with a profound mutual
understanding. There was a silent handshake, and Carroll set off
down the mountain toward the sunrise glow.
XIII
LEFT BEHIND
Dawn crested, poised, and broke in a surf of splendor upon the
great mountain-line that overhangs Puerto del Norte. Where, at
the corporation dock, there had lurked the shadow of a yacht,
gray-black against blue-black, there now swung a fairy ship of
purest silver, cradled upon a swaying mirror. Tiny insects,
touched to life by the radiance, scuttled busily about her decks
and swarmed out upon the dock. The seagoing yacht Polly had
awakened early.
Down the mule path that forms the shortest cut from the railway
station straggled a group of minute creatures.
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