Gradually the sun burned away the mist, and the illusion of privacy it had given me with the girl and Old Pebble slipped away, as the vague enclosure around us withdrew and we began to have glimpses of the amazing gorge.

The crew began to stir. Old Pebble went forward and beat a gong, which was not to assemble the men for work, as I thought, but was intended, Su-ling told me, to drive away once and for all the dragons of bad weather. This was the man who could not bear to listen to an engineer speak of motors and ships and pulleys which, along with my beautiful dam, would some day surely improve this treacherous highway of water!

We weighed spars and went on.

Not long afterward I discovered that my watch was no longer in my pocket. I rummaged through my gear. It was gone.

—

TOGETHER they had tricked me, Su-ling and the devious tracker; there was no other explanation. That jostling! That was when it had happened! I felt very bitter toward Su-ling, the memory of whose gentle instruction curdled in my mind. I sulked that morning. I could not bring myself to accuse Su-ling, and just then I dared not accuse the head tracker; I knew about “face,” I knew the danger of allowing a humiliation to be explicitly seen, so I held my tongue and felt lonely and homesick. We were still in that most spectacular of gorges, but my engineering optimism had vanished, my altruism had shriveled up, and my pride stung like a slapped cheek.

Though my watch had not been working, and might never again have run, and was therefore probably useless as a watch, nevertheless I very much wanted it as property; I wanted it with a disgusting greed; I wanted it just then more than I wanted to understand or be understood.

It was mid-afternoon before Su-ling came out of the cabin on some errand that was going to hurry her forward right past me with only a nod and a hasty innocent smile, but I stopped her and asked her to chat, and she sat down as if she had plenty of time for me, and she looked at me perfectly calmly as she began some anecdote or other, and I could see the tight, sweet gather of sadness at the corner of her mouth, and I began to hear her magical soft voice instructing me.

I waited a very long time before I quietly said I would like to have my watch back.

Su-ling looked at me with big eyes and pretended not to know what I was talking about.

I repeated and insisted, being very careful to keep my voice even and low.