An hour later Cutty returned the notebooks to their abiding place,
his memory refreshed. The poor devil! A dissolute father and uncle,
dissolute forbears, corrupt blood weakened by intermarriage, what hope
was there? Only one--the rich, fiery blood of the Calabrian mother.

But why had the chap come to America? Why not England or the Riviera,
where rank, even if shorn of its prerogatives, is still treated
respectfully? But America!

Cutty's head went up. Perhaps that was it--to barter his phantom
greatness for money, to dazzle some rich fool of an American girl. In
that case Karlov would be welcome. But wait a moment. The chap had come
in from the west. In that event there should be an Odyssey of some kind
tucked away in the affair.

Cutty resumed his pacing. The moment his imagination caught the
essentials he visualized the Odyssey. Across mountains and deserts,
rivers and seas, he followed Two-Hawks in fancy, pursued by an
implacable hatred, more or less historical, of which the lad was less
a cause than an abstract object. And Karlov--Cutty understood Karlov
now--always span near, his hate reenergizing his faltering feet.

There was evidently some iron in this Two-Hawks' blood. Fear never
would have carried him thus far. Fear would have whispered, "Futility!
Futility!" And he would have bent his head to the stroke. So then there
was resource and there was courage. And he lay in yonder room, beaten
and penniless. The top piece in the grim irony--to have come all these
thousands of miles unscathed, to be dropped at the goal. But America?
Well, that would be solved later.