Helena took a pleasure to read military works.  The field of his ambition was quite closed; he was done with action; and looked forward to a ranch in a mountain dingle, a patch of corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and contemplative age in the green shade of forests.  “Just let me get down on my back in a hayfield,” said he, “and you’ll find there’s no more snap to me than that much putty.”

And for two days the perfervid being actually rested.  The third, he was observed in consultation with the local editor, and owned he was in two minds about purchasing the press and paper.  “It’s a kind of a hold for an idle man,” he said, pleadingly; “and if the section was to open up the way it ought to, there might be dollars in the thing.”  On the fourth day he was gone till dinner-time alone; on the fifth we made a long picnic drive to the fresh field of enterprise; and the sixth was passed entirely in the preparation of prospectuses.  The pioneer of McBride City was already upright and self-reliant as of yore; the fire rekindled in his eye, the ring restored to his voice; a charger sniffing battle and saying ha-ha, among the spears.  On the seventh morning we signed a deed of partnership, for Jim would not accept a dollar of my money otherwise; and having once more engaged myself—­or that mortal part of me, my purse—­among the wheels of his machinery, I returned alone to San Francisco and took quarters in the Palace Hotel.

The same night I had Nares to dinner.  His sunburnt face, his queer and personal strain of talk, recalled days that were scarce over and that seemed already distant.  Through the music of the band outside, and the chink and clatter of the dining-room, it seemed to me as if I heard the foaming of the surf and the voices of the sea-birds about Midway Island.  The bruises on our hands were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited on by elaborate darkies, eating pompano and drinking iced champagne.

“Think of our dinners on the Norah, captain, and then oblige me by looking round the room for contrast.”

He took the scene in slowly.  “Yes, it is like a dream,” he said:  “like as if the darkies were really about as big as dimes; and a great big scuttle might open up there, and Johnson stick in a great big head and shoulders, and cry, ’Eight bells!’—­and the whole thing vanish.”

“Well, it’s the other thing that has done that,” I replied.  “It’s all bygone now, all dead and buried.  Amen! say I.”

“I don’t know that, Mr. Dodd; and to tell you the fact, I don’t believe it,” said Nares.  “There’s more Flying Scud in the oven; and the baker’s name, I take it, is Bellairs.  He tackled me the day we came in:  sort of a razee of poor old humanity—­jury clothes—­full new suit of pimples:  knew him at once from your description.  I let him pump me till I saw his game.  He knows a good deal that we don’t know, a good deal that we do, and suspects the balance.  There’s trouble brewing for somebody.”