"A. E. Merritt - Dwellers In The Mirage - v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

been born in the Nation. Those years in college were
the happiest I had ever known. It was during the last
of them that America entered the World War. Together
we had left Dartmouth, gone into training camp, sailed
for France on the same transport.

Sitting there, under the slow-growing Alaskan dawn,
my mind leaped over the years between . . . my
mother's death on Armistice Day . . . my return to
New York to a frankly hostile home . . . Jim's recall
to his clan . . . the finishing of my course in mining
engineering . . . my wanderings in Asia . . . my
second return to America and my search for Jim . . .
this expedition of ours to Alaska, more for comradeship
and the wilderness peace than for the gold we were
supposed to be seekingЧ

A long trail since the WarЧthe happiest for me these
last two months of it. It had led us from Nome over
the quaking tundras, and then to the Koyukuk, and at
last to this little camp among the spruces, somewhere
between the headwaters of the Koyukuk and the Chandalar
in the foothills of the unexplored Endicott Range.
A long trail ... I had the feeling that it was here
the real trail of my life began.

A ray of the rising sun struck through the trees. Jim
sat up, looked over at me, and grinned.

"Didn't get much sleep after the concert, did
you ?"

"What did you do to the ancestors ? They didn't
seem to keep you awake long."

He said, too carelessly: "Oh, they quieted down."
His face and eyes were expressionless. He was veiling
his mind from me. The ancestors had not quieted down.
He had lain awake while I had thought him sleeping. I
made a swift decision. We would go south as we had
planned. I would go with him as far as Circle. I would
find some pretext to leave him there.

I said: "We're not going north. I've changed my
mind."

"Yes. why ?"

"I'll tell you after we've had breakfast," I saidЧ
I'm not so quick in thinking up lies. "Rustle up a fire,