And he never
slackened the dizzy pace of his daily labor, except upon those few
occasions when from either Hollister or Lawanne he got a book that
held him. Then he would stop work and sit in the bunk house and read
till the last page was turned. But mostly he cut and piled cedar as if
he tried to drown out in the sweat of his body whatever fever burned
within.
Hollister observed that Mills no longer had much traffic with the
Blands. For weeks at a time he did not leave the bolt camp except to
come down to Hollister's house.
Lawanne seemed to be a favored guest now, at Bland's. Lawanne worked
upon his book, but by fits and starts, working when he did work with a
feverish concentration. He had a Chinese boy for house-servant. He
might be found at noon or at midnight sprawled in a chair beside a
pot-bellied stove, scrawling in an ungainly hand across sheets of
yellow paper. He had no set hours for work. When he did work, when he
had the vision and the fit was on and words came easily, chance
callers met with scant courtesy. But he had great stores of time to
spare, for all that.
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