Carl impatiently busied himself with some mail upon the table. It had
followed him from the farm to Palm Beach and from Palm Beach to New
York. There were half a dozen wild letters of gratitude from Wherry
and a letter from the old doctor, Wherry's father, that brought a flush
of genuine pleasure to Carl's face.
"Wherry, too!" said he softly. "Of course. He stuck that other night.
I've been too blind to see." Drawing his flute from his pocket, he
glanced with a curious smile and glow at a row of notches in the wood.
The first notch he had cut in the flute after the rainy night in
Philip's wigwam, the second by Mic-co's pool, the third was subtly
linked with the marshes of Glynn, and a fourth had been furtively added
in the camp of his cousin. Now with a glance at Wherry's letters, he
was quietly carving a fifth. Who may say what they portended--this
record of notches carved upon the one friend who had always understood!
Carl was to carve another, of which he little dreamed, before the
summer waned; and the spur to its making was close at hand.
The doorbell rang as he finished, and dropping the flute back into his
pocket, he rang for some whiskey and cigars for the entertainment of
Mr. Dorrigan, who presently appeared, at the heels of a servant,
twirling his hat with a nonchalant ease much too elaborate and at
variance with the look in his good eye to be genuine.
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