The man was wellnigh beside himself with excitement. Oil was his job. Oil was his whole life. And out of his experience and keen practical knowledge, he knew he had jumped into the heart of such an El Dorado as he had only found hitherto in his dreams.
But McLagan refused to be caught up by the infection of the man’s excitement. It was not that he doubted. He never doubted when Peter Loby gave his considered opinion on such a subject. But he knew the amazing nature of the man’s assertion, and he knew that never before had he experienced a moment when calm judgment was more surely needed.
He read the written report. Then he looked up at the man who still stood leaning over the table awaiting his decision. He nodded.
“If this is right, Peter, it’s--the biggest thing in the world,” he said.
“It’s too--big--as it is,” he said. “Too sweeping. I’ll rewrite it, and let you see what I’ll send. I just daren’t send it all till we’ve tried it out. I’m glad you came along down, Peter.”
He held out a hand and the oil man gripped it.
“Act the way you think, boss,” the man said, but with a shadow of disappointment. “You know best. Say--it’s great.”
“It surely is. After this I guess you’ll be able to quit the game and sit back--Hello!”
Sasa Mannik’s stocky body was filling up the open doorway. He stood there breathlessly gesticulating.
“Boss! Boss! You come quick!” he cried. “It dam’ fool white man with big ship, plenty much sail. Him come along by raceway tide. Him break all up sure. All no good break up. You come quick. Crazy white man. All dam’ fool. No good.”
The three men were standing outside the hut perched so perilously near to the sharp-cut edge of the sheer cliff. They were standing at an altitude of something over four hundred feet, gazing over the wild scene of the bay. It was the highest point immediately overlooking the mouth of the Alsek River.
Behind them, to the north and to the south, rose the great hills which had remained snow-clad throughout the ages. But there the iron cliffs of the coast line stretched out at something like a uniform level. Far as the eye could see the smiling ocean lay spread out, glittering under the keen spring sunshine, while below them, marked clearly, sharply, lay the ugly ruins of torn rock which the storms of centuries had hewn from the parent cliffs.