w--right."

"Why not?" She looked at me with head flung back in characteristic
fashion. "Why not? They suffered for us, the poor, bruised fingers. Why
shouldn't I honor them with my poor best?"

"Oh, well!" I shrugged, embarrassed by her shining ardor, even though in
my heart it pleased me.

She came close to me.

"I love you better every day, Jack. You're splendid. Life is going to be
a great, big thing for me with you."

"Even though we don't find the treasure?" I asked, thrilling with the
joy of her confession.

"We've found the treasure," she whispered. "I don't give that"--she
snapped her fingers with a gesture of scorn--"for all the gold that was
ever buried compared to you, laddie. I just spend my time thanking God
for you with all my heart."

"But you mustn't idealize me. I'm full of faults."

"Don't I know it? Don't I love your faults, too, you goose? Who wants a
perfect man?"

"I know, I know."

The wheel was getting very little attention, for my darling was in my
arms and I was kissing softly her tumbled hair and the shadows under her
glorious eyes.

"Love is like that. It doesn't want perfection. I care more for you
because you're always wanting your own way. The tiny, powdered freckles
on the side of your nose are beauty marks to me."

"You _are_ a goose," she laughed. "But it's true. I've seen lots of
handsomer men than you--Boris, for example; but I've never seen one so
good looking."

"And that's just nonsense," I told her blithely.

"Of course it's nonsense. But there is no sense so true as nonsense."

I dare say we babbled foolishly the inarticulate rhapsody all lovers
find so expressive.

CHAPTER XX

THE BIG DITCH

Darkness had fallen before we dropped anchor in the harbor of Panama. It
was such a night as only the tropics can produce, the stars burning
close and brilliant, the full moon rising out of a silent sea. In front
of us the lights of the city came twinkling out. Behind them lay the
mystery of conquest.

No spot in all the western hemisphere held so much of romance as this.
Drake and Pizarro had tarried here in their blustering careers, Morgan
had captured and burned the city.

Many times in the past centuries the Isthmus had been won and lost, but
never had such a victory been gained as that our countrymen had secured
in the past half dozen years.

They had overcome yellow fever and proved that the tropics might be made
a safe place for the Anglo-Saxon t