Fifteen years since he had taken the hand of Captain Carreras and laughingly refused to share the other’s fortunes!  Bedient remembered how bashfully, but how genuinely, that had been suggested.  Then the Captain’s manner had become crisp and nervous to hide his heart-break, and the order was given with all the authority of the quarter-deck, that Bedient must never fail in any extremity to make known his need.  But there had been no need—­save for the friendship....

Strange old true heart that could not forget!  Bedient felt it in every letter.  Thousands of acquaintances, but not a friend nor relative!  He thought about Bedient every day; an old man’s heart turned to the boy whose hands had suddenly fallen upon him with such amazing power.  Occasionally in the letters, there was an obvious effort to cover this profundity of affection with a surface of humor, but it always broke through before a page was blotted....  Equatoria, and his really remarkable acquisitions there, were invariably matters for light touches.  He had picked up big lands for almost nothing; and he found himself presently in strong favor with what was probably the most stable government Equatoria had ever known.  The Captain’s original purpose of acquiring the mineral rights of certain rich rivers had greatly prospered.  Yes, there was gold in the river-beds....  Incidentally, to keep his hands “from mauling the natives,” he had caused to be planted at different times, several thousand acres of cacao trees, all of which were now bearing.  The Captain explained naively that these had turned out rather handsomely, since the natives harvested the nuts for him at a ludicrously low figure, and Holland sent ships twice a year for the product.  “Just suggest anything to this soil, and the answer is perennials.  We can’t bother with stuff that has to be planted more than once,” he observed.  Bedient returned many times to the letter that told about the goats.  Part of it read: 

“There was a rocky strip of land in the fork of two rivers—­several thousand acres—­that almost shut itself off, so narrow and rocky was the neck....  For a long time this big bottle of land troubled me—­couldn’t think of any use to put it to—­until somebody mentioned goats.  In a fit of industry, I shipped over a few goat families from Mexico, turned them loose in the natural corral—­and forgot all about them for a couple of years.  You see, the natives are fruit-eaters, and it’s too hot for skins.  My men occasionally brought me word that the goats were doing well.  Finally, I sent a party over to pile a few more rocks at the mouth.  They came back pale and awed, begging me to come and look.  I went.  I tell you, boy, there were parades, caravans, pageants of goats in there—­all happy in the stone-crop....  I haven’t dared to look for a year or more, but with a good marine-glass from the upper window of the hacienda, you can see a portion of the tract.  They’re hopping about over there—­thick as fleas!...  That’s the way everything multiplies.  Come and extricate me from the goat problem!...  Dear lad, I do need you—­not for goats, nor for fruit, nor mining, nor chocolate interests, not to be my cook—­forgive the mention of a delightful memory—­but as a lonely old man needs a boy—­his boy.”