human
Forget it, Victor, he said in blunt retraction.
gpt
I thought it was merely a little splashing match and I didn't mean to back you out into deep water. I know something about the load business myself; I'm trying to put a couple of kid brothers through college, right now.
human
Are you? said Brouillard half-absently; and then, as one who would not be selfishly indifferent:
gpt
That is fine. I wish I were going to have something as substantial as that to show for my wood sawing.
human
Won't you?
gpt
Not in a thousand years, Murray.
human
In less than a hundredth part of that time you'll be at the top of the Reclamation-Service pay-roll--won't that help out?
gpt
No; not appreciably.
human
We're dodging the main issue, he said.
gpt
What is the active principle of your 'sevens'--or haven't you figured it out?
human
Change, was the prompt rejoinder;
gpt
And what started you off into the memory woods, particularly, to-night?
human
A small recurrence of the coincidences. It began with that hopelessly unreliable little clock that Anson persists in carrying around with him wherever he goes. While you were up on the hill cutting your spruce tips Anson pulled out and said he was going to unpack his camp kit. He went over to his tent and lighted up, and a few minutes afterward I heard the clock strike--seven. I looked at my watch and saw that it lacked a few minutes of eight, and the inference was that Anson had set the clock wrong, as he commonly does. Just as I was comfortably forgetting the significant reminder the clock went off again, striking slowly, as if the mechanism were nearly run down.
gpt
Another seven?
human
No; it struck four. I didn't imagine it, Murray; I counted: one--two--three--four.
gpt
Well? was the bantering comment.
human
You couldn't conjure an omen out of that, could you? You say there was a light in the tent--I suppose Anson was there tinkering with his little tin god of a timepiece. It's a habit of his.
gpt
That was the natural inference; but I was curious enough to go and look. When I lifted the flap the tent was empty. The clock was ticking away on Anson's soap-box dressing-case, with a lighted candle beside it, and for a crazy half second I had a shock, Murray--the minute-hand was pointing to four and the hour-hand to seven!
human
Still I don't see the miraculous significance,
gpt
Don't you? It was only another of the coincidences, of course. While I stood staring at the clock Anson came in with Griffith's tool kit. 'I've got to tinker her again,' he said. 'She's got so she keeps Pacific time with one hand and Eastern with the other.' Then I understood that he had been tinkering it and had merely gone over to Griffith's tent for the tools.
human
Well, said Grislow again,
gpt
The combination was what called the turn, Grizzy. To-day happens to be my twenty-eighth birthday--the end of the fourth cycle of seven.
human
By George! ejaculated the hydrographer in mock perturbation, sitting up so suddenly that he dropped his pipe into the ashes of the fire.
gpt
In that case, according to what seems to be the well-established custom, something is due to fall in right now!
human
I have been looking for it all day, returned Brouillard calmly,