Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/70

56 to be there, and he'll quote you a price for the entire outfit. We'll get our dogs in Greenland, of course. The Aurora people, on their way back, left theirs at Godhaven. We must be in Greenland in June; in July is our chance to get through Melville Bay, if we've luck with the ice."

So at two o'clock, when Geoff at last turned in, the voyage to the Arctic was a settled affair. He lay awake wondering about it and thinking of the complete change in his immediate future which had been worked so swiftly. If he was to go—as he certainly would if Margaret persisted—he had better be a leader rather than a follower. At eleven the next morning he met Latham at the country club to run their ponies for the first practice over the soggy field. Some other men were out and they divided into fours and ran through two rapid, rough periods; but as Geoff went back to the dressing room, bruised and shaken from two hard tumbles and strained from riding off heavier men, for the first time he took no great pride in his daring and endurance.

"I say, Price," he confided to Latham,