“Then I’ll leave you some. And I’ll leave you my skiff to take it home in, and cache all my gasoline except one can. I’ll be back on Monday after seeing what effect haircloth has on Indians.” After the coffee and hardtack, Marvin tidied up his camp ready to depart. “May I leave you fifty dollars to bind that option?” “Not a dollar. Hidden in my hollow log are pieces of gold that Jean knows nothing of. They were sent to my children by a friend of their mother’s down in Connecticut.” “Doctor, do you think I’ve sold my conscience?” “Marvin, don’t talk like an ass.” “But she thinks I’m too obedient.” “Obedience saves most men, as Sophocles long ago remarked. But we see her point, and I’ll talk to her about it.” Chapter 51. Antimony As the doctor was about to leave the island he heard a distant bark, and saw Agricola emerge from the cedars and come tearing down to the boat-house. The dog caught sight of him and plunged into the water. He gained the harbor, dashed up the rocks, and shook himself into rainbows. He panted and whined, and finally seized his master by the sleeve. “Calm yourself, boy. If you had a few sweat-glands, you wouldn’t pant so hard.” He rowed the dog across in Marvin’s skiff, and followed him into the woods. Having mounted the hill and descended past the garden, Agricola sprang across the fire-ditch and continued into the balsams. When at last they reached the creek, the man was panting as hard as the dog. The creek was wide at that point, and Agricola looked back inquiringly. The scholar hesitated, but since he thought that some child might be in trouble, he answered the look. “Go on.” And on they went. The man had to take a stroke or two before they made the other side. The woods now were almost impenetrable, but Agricola wedged his way under. The doctor’s wet clothes scraped the leaves from the mold, and moss from the logs. Repeatedly his gray shirt was torn by stilettos of balsam. At last he could go no farther. “Wait a minute.” The dog stopped but continued to whine. “Keep still.” Agricola closed his red mouth again and again, trying to swallow his noise, and in the intervals the doctor listened. He heard bits of cone falling from the lips of red squirrels. He heard the feet of nuthatches against the bark. He heard the borers in the balsams, grinding slowly. He heard a far-off elfin whistle of the government boat coming down to supply the buoy with new tanks of gas. And then he heard a moan. He noted the direction and crawled forward. Stumps of pine slowly crumbling. Fallen trunks slowly flattening into earth as a dead body flattens. Thick humus, with black pine needles like crystals of stibnite. Great trees, snapped off and piled above him. Now a deer run. A spring was ahead, and presently there would be a clump of alders. Then, close to the ground, he caught a glimpse of fallow. With great effort he rose to his feet and looked.