The stranger handed Colombo a book.
"There", said he, "is the land of your imagining", and in his
eyes gleamed a curious sardonic mockery.
And Colombo read the book. And when he had finished his face was
grey as are old ashes in ancient urns, and about the mouth of him
whom men called the Dreamer were curious hard lines.
"Now, by Heaven", said Colombo brandishing his sword Impavide,
"you lie. And your Gopher Prairie is a lie. And you are all, all
contemptible, you who dip your pens in tracing ink and seek to
banish beautiful dreams from the world."
But the red-haired stranger had vanished and Colombo found that
he was alone and to Colombo the world seemed cheerless and as a
place that none has lived in for a long time.
"Now this is curious", mused Colombo, "for I have evidently been
dreaming and a more horrible dream have I never had, and I
think", said Colombo, "that while all this quite certainly did
not actually take place, yet that grinning red head has upset me
horribly and on the whole", said Colombo, "I believe the safest
course would be to put back at once for Spain, for certainly I
have no desire to take the remotest chance of discovering
anything which may in the least resemble that Gopher Prairie."
And the tale tells that as Colombo started for the deck in order
that he might give the signal for the return to Spain, there came
across the water from one of the other ships the faint cry of a
sailor.
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