But after all, it takes companionship to perfect
service. One can not work alone. You are the completion of my desire
to work, and you are the inspiration of my ability to work. Yes,
companionship is life,--bigger than love and bigger than service, for
companionship includes them both."
CHAPTER XVI
DEPARTED SPIRITS
As the evenings grew colder, the camp chairs on the mesa were deserted,
and the chattering "chasers" gathered indoors, sometimes in one or
another of the airy tent cottages, sometimes before the cheerful blaze
of the logs in the fireplace of the parlors, but oftenest of all they
flocked into Number Six of McCormick Building, where David was confined
to his cot. Always there was laughter in Number Six, merry jesting,
ready repartee. So it became the mecca of those, who, even more
assiduously than they chased the cure, sought after laughter and joy.
In the parlors the guests played cards, but in Number Six, deferring
silently to David's calling, they pulled out checkers and parcheesi,
and fought desperate battles over the boards. But sometimes they
fingered the dice and the checkers idly, leaning back in their chairs,
and talked of temperatures, and hypodermics, and doctors, and war, and
ghosts.
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