"I'm old enough to be your father, boy, and have done, in all things, the reverse of what I advised you. Therefore, I know I was wrong. We may sneer and speak of poetry when the words proceed from another, my boy; but, as inevitable as death, there comes to every man the knowledge that he stands accursed of Nature, who hasn't heard the voice of his own child call 'father!'"

He clambered down, leaving the speechless Ole sprawling on the wagon-seat. Back in his own wagon, he smiled broadly to himself.

"Strange, how easily the apple falls when it's ripe," he soliloquized.

They drove on clear to the mill without another word; without even a grin from the broad-faced Ole, who sat in ponderous thought in the wagon ahead. To a nature such as his the infrequency of a new idea gives it the force of a cataclysm; during its presence, obliterating everything else.

It was nearly noon when they reached the narrow fringe of trees and underbrush—deciduous and wind-tortured all—which bordered the big, muddy, low-lying Missouri; and soon they could hear the throb of the engine at the mill, and the swish of the saw through the green lumber; a sound that heard near by, inevitably carries the suggestion of scalpel and living flesh. Nothing but green timber was sawed thereabout in those days. The country was settling rapidly, lumber was imperative, and available timber very, very limited.

Returning, the heavy loads grumbled slowly along, so slowly that it was nearly evening, and their shadows preceded them by rods when they reached the little prairie town. They stopped to water their teams; and Ole, true to the instincts of his plebeian ancestry, went in search of a glass of beer. He returned, quickly, his face very red.

"A fellow in there is talking about—about Mrs. Maurice," he blurted.

"In the saloon, Ole?"

The Swede repeated the story, watching the tall man from the corner of his eye.

A man, very drunk, was standing by the bar, and telling how, in coming to town, he had seen a buggy drive away from the Maurice home very fast. He had thought it was the doctor's buggy and had stopped in to see if any one was sick.

The fellow had grinned here and drank some more, before finishing the story; the surrounding audience winking at each other meanwhile, and drinking in company.

Then he went on to tell how Camilla Maurice had sat just inside the doorway, her face in her hands, sobbing,—so hard she hadn't noticed him; and—and—it wasn't the doctor who had been there at all!

Ichabod had been holding a pail of water so that a horse might drink. At the end he motioned Ole very quietly, to take his place.

"Finish watering them, and—wait for me, please."

It was far from what the Swede had expected; but he accepted the task, obediently.

The only saloon of the town stood almost exactly opposite Hans Becher's place, flush with the street. A long, low building, communicating with the outer world by one door—sans glass—its single window in front and at the rear lit it but imperfectly at midday, and now at early evening made faces almost indistinguishable, and cast kindly shadow over the fly specks and smoke stains of a low roof. A narrow pine bar, redolent of tribute absorbed from innumerable passing "schooners," stretched the entire length of the room at one side; and back of it, in shirt sleeves and stained apron, presided the typical bar-keeper of the frontier. All this Ichabod saw as he stepped inside; then, himself in shadow, he studied the group before him.

Railroad and cattle men, mostly, made up the gathering, with a scant sprinkling of farmers and others unclassified. A big, ill-dressed fellow was repeating the tale of scandal for the benefit of a newcomer; the narrative moving jerkily over hiccoughs, like hurdles.

"—I drew up to th' house quick, an' went up th' path quiet like,"—he tapped thunderously on the bar with a heavy glass for silence—"quiet—sh-h—like; an' when I come t' th' door, ther' 't was open, an'—as I hope—hope t' die,... drink on me, b'ys, aller y'—set 'm up, Barney ol' b'y, m' treat,... hope t' die, ther' she sat, like this—" He looked around mistily for a chair, but none was convenient, and he slid flat to the floor in their midst, his face in his hands, blubbering dismally in imitation.... "Sat (hic) like this; rockin' an' moanin' n' callin' his name: Asa—Asa—Asa—(hic) Arnold—'shure 's I'm a sinner she—"

He did not finish. Very suddenly the surrounding group had scattered, and he peered up through maudlin tears to learn the cause. One man alone stood above him. The room had grown still as a church.

The drunken one blinked his watery eyes and showed his yellow teeth in a convivial grin.

"G'd evnin', pard.... Serve th'—th' gem'n, Barney; m' treat." Again the teeth obtruded. "Was jes'—"

"Get up!"

He of the story winked harder than before.

"Bless m'—" He paused for an expletive, hiccoughed, and forgetting what had caused the halt, stumbled on:—"Didn' rec'gniz' y' b'fore. Shake, ol' boy. S—sh-sorry for y'." Tears rose copiously. "Tough—when feller's wife—"

Interrupting suddenly a muffled sound like the distant exhaust of a big engine—the meeting of a heavy boot with an obstacle on the floor. "Get up!"

A very mountain of human brawn resolved itself upward; a hand on its hips; a curse on its lips.



"You damned lantern-faced—" No hiccough now, but a pause from pure physical impotence, pending a doubtful struggle against a half-dozen men.

"Order, gentlemen!" demanded the bar-keeper, adding emphasis by hammering a heavy bottle on the bar.

"Let him go," commanded Ichabod very quietly; but they all heard through the confusion. "Let him go."

The country was by no means the wild West of the story-papers, but it was primitive, and no man thought, then, of preventing the obviously inevitable.

Ichabod held up his hand, suggestively, imperatively, and the crowd fell back, silent,—leaving him facing the big man.

"You'll apologize!" The thin jaw showed clear, through the shade of brown stubble on Ichabod's face.

For answer, the big man leaning on the bar exhibited his discolored teeth and breathed hard.

"How shall it be?" asked Ichabod.

A grimy hand twitched toward a grimier hip.

"You've seen the likes of this—"

Ichabod turned toward the spectators.

"Will any man lend me—"

"Here—"

"Here—"

"And give us a little light."

"Outside," suggested the saloon-keeper.

"We're not advertising patent medicine," blazed Ichabod, and the lamps were lit immediately.

Once more the long-visaged man appealed to the group lined up now against the bar.

"Gentlemen—I never carried a revolver a half-hour in my life. Is it any more than fair that I name the details?"

"Name 'm and be quick," acquiesced his big opponent before the others could speak.

"Thanks, Mr. Duggin," with equal swiftness. "These, then, are the conditions." For three seconds, that seemed a minute, Ichabod looked steadily between his adversary's bushy eyebrows. "The conditions," he repeated, "are, that starting from opposite ends of the room, we don't fire until our toes touch in the middle line."

"Good!" commended a voice; but it was not big Duggin who spoke.

"I'll see that it's done, too,"—added a listening cattleman, grasping Ichabod by the hand.

"And I."

The building had been designed as a bowling-alley and was built the entire length of the lot. With an alacrity born of experience, the long space opposite the bar was cleared, and the belligerents stationed one at either end, their faces toward the wall. Midway between them a heavy line had been drawn with chalk, and beside it stood a half-dozen grim men, their hands resting suggestively on their hips. The room was again very quiet, and from out-of-doors penetrated the shrill sound of a schoolboy whistling "Annie Laurie" with original variations. So exotic seemed the entire scene in its prairie setting, that it might have been transferred bodily from the stage of a distant theatre and set down here,—by mistake.

"Now," directed a voice. "You understand, men. You're to face and walk to the line. When your feet touch—fire; and," warningly—"remember, not before. Ready, gentlemen. Turn."

Ichabod faced about, the cocked revolver in his hand, the name Asa Arnold singing in his ears. A terrible cold-white anger was in his heart against the man opposite, who had publicly caused the resurrection of this hated, buried thing. For a moment it blotted out all other sensations; then, rushing, crowding came other thoughts,—vision from boyhood down. In the space of seconds, faded scenes of the dead past took on sudden color and as suddenly vanished. Faces, he had forgotten for years, flashed instantaneously into view. Voices long hushed in oblivion, re-embodied, spoke in accents as familiar as his own. Inwardly he was seething with the myriad shifting pictures of a drowning man. Outwardly he walked those half-score steps to the line, unflinchingly; came to certain death,—and waited: personification of all that is cool and deliberate—of the sudden abundant nerve in emergencies which comes only to the highly evolved.

Duggin, the big man, turned likewise at the word and came part way swiftly; then stopped, his face very pale. Another step he took, with another pause, and with great drops of perspiration gathering on his face, and on the backs of his hands. Yet another start, and he came very near; so near that he gazed into the blue of Ichabod's eyes. They seemed to him now devil's eyes, and he halted, looking at them, fingering the weapon in his hand, his courage oozing at every pore.

Out of those eyes and that long, thin face stared death; not hot, sudden death, but nihility, cool, deliberate, that waited for one! The big beads on his forehead gathered in drops and ran down his cheeks. He tried to move on, but his legs only trembled beneath him. The hopeless, unreasoning terror of the frightened animal, the raw recruit, the superstitious negro, was upon him. The last fragment of self-respect, of bravado even, was in tatters. No object on earth, no fear of hereafter, could have made him face death in that way, with those eyes looking into his.

The weapon shook from Duggin's hand to the floor,—with a sound like the first clatter of gravel on a coffin lid; and in abasement absolute he dropped his head; his hands nerveless, his jaw trembling.

"I beg your pardon—and your wife's," he faltered.

"It was all a lie? You were drunk?" Ichabod crossed the line, standing over him.

A rustle and a great snort of contempt went around the room; but Duggin still felt those terrible eyes upon him.

"I was very drunk. It was all a lie."

Without another word Ichabod turned away, and almost immediately the other men followed, the door closing behind them. Only the bar-keeper stood impassive, watching.

That instant the red heat of the liquor returned to the big man's brain and he picked up the revolver. Muttering, he staggered over to the bar.

"D—n him—the hide-faced—" he cursed. "Gimme a drink, Barney. Whiskey, straight."

"Not a drop."

"What?"

"Never another drop in my place so long as I live."

"Barney, damn you!"

"Get out! You coward!"

"But, Barney—"

"Not another word. Go."

Again Duggin was sober as he stumbled out into the evening.

* * * * *

Ichabod moved slowly up the street, months aged in those last few minutes. Reaction was inevitable, and with it the future instead of the present, stared him in the face. He had crowded the lie down the man's throat, but well he knew it had been useless. The story was true, and it would spread; no power of his could prevent. He could not deceive himself, even. That name! Again the white anger born of memory, flooded him. Curses on the name and on the man who had spoken it! Why must the fellow have turned coward at the last moment? Had they but touched feet over the line—

Suddenly Ichabod stopped, his hands pressed to his head. Camilla, home—alone! And he had forgotten! He hurried back to the waiting Swede, an anathema that was not directed at another, hot on his lips.

"All ready, Ole," he announced, clambering to the seat.

The boy handed up the lines lingeringly.

"Here, sir." Then uncontrollable, long-repressed curiosity broke the bounds of deference. "You—heard him, sir?"

"Yes."

Ole edged toward his own wagon.

"It wasn't so?"

"Duggin swore it was a lie."

"He—"

"He swore it was false, I say."

They drove out into the prairie and the night; the stars looking down, smiling, as in the morning which was so long ago, the man had smiled,—looking upward.

"Tiny, tiny mortal," they twinkled, each to the other. "So small and hot, and rebellious. Tiny, tiny, mortal!"

But the man covered his face with his hands, shutting them out.

CHAPTER VI—BY A CANDLE'S FLAME

Asa Arnold sat in the small upstairs room at the hotel of Hans Becher. It was the same room that Ichabod and Camilla had occupied when they first arrived; but he did not know that. Even had he known, however, it would have made slight difference; nothing could have kept them more constantly in his mind than they were at this time. He had not slept any the night before; a fact which would have spoken loudly to one who knew him well; and this morning he was very tired. He lounged low in the oak chair, his feet on the bed, the usual big cigar in his mouth.

This morning, the perspective of the little man was anything but normal. Worse than that, he could not reduce it to the normal, try as he might.

His meeting with Camilla yesterday had produced a deep and abiding shock; for either of them to have been so moved signified the stirring of dangerous forces. They—and especially himself—who had always accepted life, even crises, so calmly; who had heretofore laughed at all display of emotion—for them to have acted as they had, for them to have spoken to each other the things they had spoken, the things they could not forget, that he never could forgive—it was unbelievable! It upset all the established order of things!

His anger of yesterday against Camilla had died out. She was not to blame; she was a woman, and women were all alike. He had thought differently before; that she was an exception; but now he knew better. One and all they were mere puppets of emotion, and fickle.

In a measure, though, as he had excused Camilla he had incriminated Ichabod. Ichabod was the guilty one, and a man. Ichabod had filched from him his possession of most value; and without even the form of a by-your-leave. The incident of last evening at the saloon (for he had heard of it in the hour, as had every one in the little town) had but served to make more implacable his resentment. By the satire of circumstances it had come about that he again, Asa Arnold, had been the cause of another's defending the honor of his own wife,—for she was his wife as yet,—and that other, the defender, was Ichabod Maurice!

The little man's face did not change at the thought. He only smoked harder, until the room was blue; but though he did not put the feeling in words even to himself, he knew in the depths of his own mind that the price of that last day was death. Whether it was his own death, or the death of Ichabod, he did not know; he did not care; but that one of them must die was inevitable. Horrible as was the thought, it had no terror for him, now. He wondered that it did not have; but, on the contrary, it seemed to him very ordinary, even logical—as one orders a dinner when he is hungry.

He lit another cigar, calmly. It was this very imperturbability of the little man which made him terrible. Like a great movement of Nature, it was awful from its very resistlessness; its imperviability to appeal. Steadily, as he had lit the cigar, he smoked until the air became bluer than before. In a ghastly way, he was trying to decide whose death it should be,—as one decides a winter's flitting, whether to Florida or California; only now the question was: should it be suicide, or,—as in the saloon yesterday,—leave the decision to Chance? For the time the personal equation was eliminated; the man weighed the evidence as impartially as though he were deciding the fate of another.

He sat long and very still; until even in the daylight the red cigar-end grew redder in the haze. Without being conscious of the fact, he was probably doing the most unselfish thinking of his life. What the result of that thought would have been no man will ever know, for of a sudden, interrupting, Hans Becher's round face appeared in the doorway.

"Ichabod Maurice to see you," coughed the German, obscured in the cloud of smoke which passed out like steam through the opening.

It cannot be said that Asa Arnold's face grew impassive; it was that already. Certain it was, though, that behind the mask there occurred, at that moment, a revolution. Born of it, the old mocking smile sprang to his lips.

"The devil fights for his own," he soliloquized. "I really believe I,"—again the smile,—"I was about to make a sacrifice."

"Sir?"

"Thank you, Hans."

The German's jaw dropped in inexpressible surprise.

"Sir?" he repeated.

"You made a decision for me, then. Thank you."

"I do not you understand."

"Tell Mr. Maurice I shall be pleased to see him."

The round face disappeared from the door.

"Donnerwetter!" commented the little landlord in the safe seclusion of the stairway. Later, in relating the incident to Minna, he tapped his forehead, suggestively.

Ichabod climbed the stair alone. "To your old room," Hans had said; and Ichabod knew the place well. He knocked on the panel, a voice answered: "Come," and he opened the door. Arnold had thrown away his cigar and opened the window. The room was clearing rapidly.

Ichabod stepped inside and closed the door carefully behind him. A few seconds he stood holding it, then swung it open quickly and glanced down the hallway. Answering, there was a sudden, scuttling sound, not unlike the escape of frightened rats, as Hans Becher precipitately disappeared. The tall man came back and for the second time slowly closed the door.

Asa Arnold had neither moved nor spoken since that first word,—"come"; and the self-invited visitor read the inaction correctly. No man, with the knowledge Ichabod possessed, could have misunderstood the challenge in that impassive face. No man, a year ago, would have accepted that challenge more quickly. Now—But God only knew whether or no he would forget,—now.

For a minute, which to an onlooker would have seemed interminable, the two men faced each other. Up from the street came the ring of a heavy hammer on a sweet-voiced anvil, as Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, sharpened anew the breaking ploughs which were battling the prairie sod for bread. In the street below, a group of farmers were swapping yarns, an occasional chorus of guffaws interrupting to punctuate the narrative. The combatants heard it all, as one hears the drone of the cicada on a sleepy summer day; at the moment, as a mere colorless background which later, Time, the greater adjuster, utilizes to harmonize the whole memory.

Ichabod had been standing; now he sat down upon the bed, his long legs stretched out before him.

"It would be useless for us to temporize," he initiated. "I've intruded my presence in order to ask you a question." The long fingers locked slowly over his knees. "What is your object here?"

The innate spirit of mockery sprang to the little man's face.

"You're mistaken," he smiled; "so far mistaken, that instead of your visit being an intrusion, I expected you"—an amending memory came to him—"although I wasn't looking for you quite so soon, perhaps." He paused for an instant, and the smile left his lips.

"As to the statement of object. I think"—slowly—"a disinterested observer would have put the question you ask into my mouth." He stared his tall visitor up and down critically, menacingly. Of a sudden, irresistibly, a very convulsion shot over his face. "God, man, you're brazen!" he commented cumulatively.

Ichabod had gambled with this man in the past, and had seen him lose half he possessed without the twitch of an eyelid. A force which now could cause that sudden change of expression—no man on earth knew, better than Ichabod, its intensity. Perhaps a shade of the same feeling crept into his own answering voice.

"We'll quarrel later, if you wish,"—swiftly. "Neither of us can afford to do so now. I ask you again, what are your intentions?"

"And I repeat, the question is by right mine. It's not I who've changed my name and—and in other things emulated the hero of the yellow-back."

Ichabod's face turned a shade paler, though his answer was calm.

"We've known each other too well for either to attempt explanation or condemnation. You wish me to testify first." The long fingers unclasped from over his knee. "You know the story of the past year: it's the key to the future."

A smile, sardonic, distinctive, lifted the tips of Arnold's big moustaches.

"Your faith in your protecting gods is certainly beautiful."

Ichabod nursed a callous spot on one palm.

"I understand,"—very slowly. "At least, you'll answer my question now, perhaps," he suggested.

"With pleasure. You intimate the future will be but a repetition of the past. It'll be my endeavor to give that statement the lie."

"You insist on quarrelling?"

"I insist on but one thing,"—swiftly. "That you never again come into my sight, or into the sight of my wife."

One of Ichabod's long hands extended in gesture.

"And I insist you shall never again use the name of Camilla Maurice as your wife."

The old mocking smile sprang to Asa Arnold's face.

"Unconsciously, you're amusing," he derided. "The old story of the mouse who forbids the cat.... You forget, man, she is my wife."

Ichabod stood up, seemingly longer and gaunter than ever before.

"Good God, Arnold," he flashed, "haven't you the faintest element of pride, or of consistency in your make-up? Is it necessary for a woman to tell you more than once that she hates you? By your own statement your marriage, even at first, was merely of convenience; but even if this weren't so, every principle of the belief you hold releases her. Before God, or man, you haven't the slightest claim, and you know it."

"And you—"

"I love her."

Asa Arnold did not stir, but the pupils of his eyes grew wider, until the whole eye seemed black.

"You fool!" he accented slowly. "You brazen egoist! Did it never occur to you that others than yourself could love?"

Score for the little man. Ichabod had been pinked first.

"You dare tell me to my face you loved her?"

"I do."

"You lie!" blazed Ichabod. "Every word and action of your life gives you the lie!"

Not five minutes had passed since he came in and already he had forgotten!

Asa Arnold likewise was upon his feet and they two faced each other,—a bed length between; in their minds the past and future a blank, the present with its primitive animal hate blazing in their eyes.

"You know what it means to tell me that." Arnold's voice was a full note higher than usual. "You'll apologize?"

"Never. It's true. You lied, and you know you lied."

The surrounding world turned dark to the little man, and the dry-goods box with the tin dipper on its top, danced before his eyes. For the first time in his memory he felt himself losing self-control, and by main force of will he turned away to the window. For the instant all the savage of his nature was on the surface, and he could fairly feel his fingers gripping at the tall man's throat.

A moment he stood in the narrow south window, full in the smiling irony of Nature's sunshine; but only a moment. Then the mocking smile that had become an instinctive part of his nature spread over his face.

"I see but one way to settle this difficulty," he intimated.

A taunt sprang to Ichabod's tongue, but was as quickly repressed.

"There is but one, unless—" with meaning pause.

"I repeat, there is but one."

Ichabod's long face held like wood.

"Consider yourself, then, the challenged party."

They were both very calm, now; the immediate exciting cause in the mind of neither. It seemed as if they had been expecting this time for years, had been preparing for it.

"Perhaps, as yesterday, in the saloon?" The points of the big moustaches twitched ironically. "I promise you there'll be no procrastination as—at certain cases recorded."

The mockery, malice inspired, was cleverly turned, and Ichabod's big chin protruded ominously, as he came over and fairly towered above the small man.

"Most assuredly it'll not be as yesterday. If we're going to reverse civilization, we may as well roll it away back. We'll settle it alone, and here."

Asa Arnold smiled up into the blue eyes.

"You'd prefer to make the adjustment with your hands, too, perhaps? There'd be less risk, considering—" He stopped at the look on the face above his. No man vis-a-vis with Ichabod Maurice ever made accusation of cowardice. Instead, instinctive sarcasm leaped to his lips.

"Not being of the West, I don't ordinarily carry an arsenal with me, in anticipation of such incidents as these. If you're prepared, however,—" and he paused again.

Ichabod turned away; a terrible weariness and disgust of it all—of life, himself, the little man,—in his face. A tragedy would not be so bad, but this lingering comedy of death—One thing alone was in his mind: to have it over, and quickly.

"I didn't expect—this, either. We'll find another way."

He glanced about the room. A bed, the improvised commode, a chair, a small table with a book upon it, and a tallow candle—an idea came to him, and his search terminated.

"I may—suggest—" he hesitated.

"Go on."

Ichabod took up the candle, and, with his pocket-knife, cut it down until it was a mere stub in the socket, then lit a match and held the flame to the wick, until the tallow sputtered into burning.

"You can estimate when that light will go out?" he intimated impassively.

Asa Arnold watched the tall man, steadily, as the latter returned the candle to the table and drew out his watch.

"I think so," sotto voce.

Ichabod returned to his seat on the bed.

"You are not afraid, perhaps, to go into the dark alone?"

"No."

"By your own hand?"

"No," again, very slowly. Arnold understood now.

"You swear?" Ichabod flashed a glance with the question.

"I swear."

"And I."

A moment they both studied the sputtering candle.

"It'll be within fifteen minutes," randomed Ichabod.

Arnold drew out his watch slowly.

"It'll be longer."

That was all. Each had made his choice; a trivial matter of one second in the candle's life would decide which of these two men would die by his own hand.

For a minute there was no sound. They could not even hear their breathing. Then Arnold cleared his throat.

"You didn't say when the loser must pay his debt," he suggested.

Ichabod's voice in answer was a trifle husky.

"It won't be necessary." A vision of the future flashed, sinister, inevitable. "The man who loses won't care to face the necessity long."

Five minutes more passed. Down the street the blacksmith was hammering steadily. Beneath the window the group of farmers had separated; their departing footsteps tapping into distance and silence.

Minna went to the street door, calling loudly for Hans, Jr., who had strayed,—and both men started at the sound. The quick catch of their breathing was now plainly audible.

Arnold shifted in his chair.

"You swear—" his voice rang unnaturally sharp, and he paused to moisten his throat,—"you swear before God you'll abide by this?"

"I swear before God," repeated Ichabod slowly.

A second, and the little man followed in echo.

"And I—I swear, I, too, will abide."

Neither man remembered that one of this twain, who gave oath before the Deity, was an agnostic, the other an atheist!

A lonely south wind was rising, and above the tinkle of the blacksmith's hammer there sounded the tap of the light shade as it flapped in the wind against the window-pane. Low, drowsy, moaning,—typical breath of prairie,—it droned through the loosely built house, with sound louder, but not unlike the perpetual roar of a great sea-shell.

Ten minutes passed, and the men sat very still. Both their faces were white, and in the angle of the jaw of each the muscles were locked hard. Ichabod was leaning near the candle. It sputtered and a tiny globule of hot tallow struck his face. He winced and wiped the drop off quickly. Observing, Arnold smiled and opened his lips as if to make comment; then closed them suddenly, and the smile passed.

Two minutes more the watches ticked off; very, very slowly. Neither of the men had thought, beforehand, of this time of waiting. Big drops of sweat were forming on both their faces, and in the ears of each the blood sang madly. A haze, as from the dropping of a shade, seemed to have formed and hung over the room, and in unison sounds from without acquired a certain faintness, like that born of distance. Through it all the two men sat motionless, watching the candle and the time, as the fascinated bird watches its charmer; as the subject watches the hypnotist,—as if the passive exercise were the one imperative thing in the world.

"Thirteen minutes."

Unconsciously, Arnold was counting aloud. The flame was very low, now, and he started to move his chair closer, then sank back, a smile, almost ghastly, upon his lips. The blaze had reached the level of the socket, and was growing smaller and smaller. Two minutes yet to burn! He had lost.

He tried to turn his eyes away, but they seemed fastened to the spot, and he powerless. It was as though death, from staring him in the face, had suddenly gripped him hard. The panorama of his past life flashed through his mind. The thoughts of the drowning man, of the miner who hears the rumble of crumbling earth, of the prisoner helpless and hopeless who feels the first touch of flame,—common thought of all these were his; and in a space of time which, though seeming to him endless, was in reality but seconds.

Then came the duller reaction and the events of the last few minutes repeated themselves, impersonally, spectacularly,—as though they were the actions of another man; one for whom he felt very sorry. He even went into the future and saw this same man lying down with a tiny bottle in his hand, preparing for the sleep from which there would be no awakening,—the sleep which, in anticipation, seemed so pleasant.

Concomitant with this thought the visionary shaded into the real, and there came the determination to act at once, this very afternoon, as soon as Ichabod had gone. He even felt a little relief at the decision. After all, it was so much simpler than if he had won, for then—then—He laughed gratingly at the thought. Cursed if he would have known what to have done, then!

The sound roused him and he looked at his watch. A minute had passed, fourteen from the first and the flame still sputtered. Was it possible after all—after he had decided—that he was not to lose, that the decision was unnecessary? There was not in his mind the slightest feeling of personal elation at the prospect, but rather a sense of injury that such a scurvy trick should be foisted off upon him. It was like going to a funeral and being confronted, suddenly, with the grinning head of the supposed dead projecting through the coffin lid. It was unseemly!

Only a minute more: a half now—yes, he would win. For the first time he felt that his forehead was wet, and he mopped his face with his handkerchief jerkily; then sank back in the chair, instinctively shooting forward his cuffs in motion habitual.

"Fifteen seconds." There could be no question now of the result; and the outside world, banished for the once, returned. The blacksmith was hammering again, the strokes two seconds apart, and the fancy seized the little man to finish counting by the ring of the anvil.

"Twelve, ten, eight," he counted slowly. "Six" was forming on the tip of the tongue when of a sudden the tiny flame veered far over toward the holder, sputtered and went out. For the first time in those interminable minutes, Arnold looked at his companion. Ichabod's face was within a foot of the table, and in line with the direction the flame had veered. Swift as thought the small man was on his feet, white anger in his face.

"You blew that candle!" he challenged.

Ichabod's head dropped into his hands. An awful horror of himself fell crushingly upon him; an abhorrence of the selfishness that could have forgotten—what he forgot; and for so long,—almost irrevocably long. Mingled with this feeling was a sudden thanksgiving for the boon of which he was unworthy; the memory at the eleventh hour, in time to do as he had done before his word was passed. Arnold strode across the room, his breath coming fast, his eyes flashing fire. He shook the tall man by the shoulder roughly.

"You blew that flame, I say!"

Ichabod looked up at the furious, dark face almost in surprise.

"Yes, I blew it," he corroborated absently.

"It would have burned longer."

"Perhaps—I don't know."

Arnold moved back a step and the old smile, mocking, maddening, spread over his face; tilting, perpendicular, the tips of the big moustaches.

"After all—" very slowly—"after all, then, you're a coward."

The tall man stood up; six-feet-two, long, bony, immovable: Ichabod himself again.

"You know that's a lie."

"You'll meet me again,—another way, then?"

"No, never!"

"I repeat, you're a cursed coward."

"I'd be a coward if I did meet you," quickly.

Something in Ichabod's voice caught the little man's ear and held him silent, as, for a long half-minute, the last time in their lives, the two men looked into each other's eyes.

"You'll perhaps explain." Arnold's voice was cold as death. "You have a reason?"

Ichabod walked slowly over to the window and leaned against the frame. Standing there, the spring sunshine fell full upon his face, drawing clear the furrows at the angles of his eyes and the gray threads of his hair. He paused a moment, looking out over the broad prairie shimmering indistinctly in the heat, and the calm of it all took hold of him, shone in his face.

"I've a reason," very measuredly, "but it's not that I fear death, or you." He took up his hat and smoothed it absently. "In future I shall neither seek, nor avoid you. Do what you wish—and God judge us both." Without a glance at the other man, he turned toward the door.

Arnold moved a step, as if to prevent him going.

"I repeat, it's my right to know why you refuse." His feet shifted uneasily upon the floor. "Is it because of another—Eleanor?"

Ichabod paused.

"Yes," very slowly. "It's because of Eleanor—and another."

The tall man's hand was upon the knob, but this time there was no interruption. An instant he hesitated; then absently, slowly, the door opened and closed. A moment later indistinct, descending steps sounded on the stairway.

Alone, Asa Arnold stood immovable, looking blindly at the closed door, listening until the tapping feet had passed into silence. Then, in a motion indescribable, of pain and of abandon, he sank back into the single chair.

His dearest enemy would have pitied the little man at that moment!

CHAPTER VII—THE PRICE OF THE LEAP

In the chronology of the little town, day followed day, as monotonously as ticks the tall clock on the wall. Only in multiple they merged into the seasons which glided so smoothly, one into the other, that the change was unnoticed, until it had taken place.

Thus three months passed by, and man's work for the year was nearly done. The face of the prairie had become one of many colors; eternal badge of civilization as opposed to Nature, who paints each season with its own hue. Beside the roadways great, rank sunflowers turned their glaring yellow faces to the light. In every direction stretched broad fields of flax; unequally ripening, their color scheme ranging from sky blue of blossoms to warm browns of maturity. Blotches of sod corn added here and there a dash of green to the picture. Surrounding all, a setting for all, the unbroken virgin prairie, mottled green and brown, stretched, smiling, harmonious, beneficent; a land of promise and of plenty for generations yet unborn.

All through the long, hot summer Asa Arnold had stayed in town, smoking a big pipe in front of the hotel of Hans Becher. Indolent, abnormally indolent, a stranger seeing him thus would have commented; but, save Hans the confiding, none other of the many interested observers were deceived. No man merely indolent sleeps neither by night nor by day; and it seemed the little man never slept. No man merely indolent sits wide-eyed hour after hour, gazing blankly at the earth beneath his feet—and uttering never a word. Brooding, not dreaming, was Asa Arnold; brooding over the eternal problem of right and wrong. And, as passed the slow weeks, he moved back—back on the trail of civilization, back until Passion and not Reason was the god enthroned; back until one thought alone was with him morning, noon, and night,—and that thought preponderant, overmastering, deadly hate.

Observant Curtis, the doctor, shrugged his shoulders.

"The old, old trail," he satirized.

It was to Bud Evans, the little agent, that he made the observation.

"Which has no ending," completed the latter.

The doctor shrugged afresh.

"That has one inevitable termination," he refuted.

"Which is—"

"Madness—sheer madness."

The agent was silent a moment.

"And the end of that?" he suggested.

Curtis pursed his lips.

"Tragedy, or a strait-jacket. The former, in this instance."

Evans was silent longer than before.

"Do you really mean that?" he queried at last, significantly.

"I've warned Maurice,"—sententiously. "I can do no more."

"And he?" quickly.

"Thanked me."

"That was all?"

"That was all."

The two friends looked at each other, steadily; yet, though they said no more, each knew the thought of the other, each knew that in future no move of Asa Arnold's would pass unnoticed, unchallenged.

Again, weeks, a month, passed without incident. It was well along in the fall and of an early evening that a vague rumor of the unusual passed swiftly, by word of mouth, throughout the tiny town. Only a rumor it was, but sufficient to set every man within hearing in motion.

On this night Hans Becher had eaten his supper and returned to the hotel office, as was his wont, for an evening smoke, when, without apparent reason, Bud Evans and Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, came quietly in and sat down.

"Evening," they nodded, and looked about them.

A minute later Dr. Curtis and Hank Judge, the machine man, dropped unostentatiously into chairs. They likewise muttered "Evening," and made observation from under their hat-brims. Others followed rapidly, until the room was full and dark figures waited outside. At last Curtis spoke.

"Your boarder, Asa Arnold, where is he, Hans?"

The unsuspecting German blew a cloud of smoke.

"He a while ago went out." Then, as an afterthought: "He will return soon."

Silence once more for a time, and a steadily thickening haze of smoke in the room.

"Did he have supper, Hans?" queried Bud Evans, impatiently.

Again the German's face expressed surprise.

"No, it is waiting for him. He went to shoot a rabbit he saw."

The men were on their feet.

"He took a gun, Hans?"

"A rifle, to be sure." The mild brown eyes glanced up reproachfully. "A man does not go hunting without—... What is this!" he completed in consternation, as, finding himself suddenly alone, he hurried outside and stood confusedly scratching his bushy poll, in the block of light surrounding the open doorway.

The yard was deserted. As one snuffs a candle, the men had vanished. Hans' pipe had gone out and he went inside for a match. Though the stars fell, the German must needs smoke. Only a minute he was gone, but during that time a group of horsemen had gathered in the street. Others were coming across lots, and still others were emerging from the darkness of alleys. Some were mounted; some led by the rein, wiry little bronchos. Watching, it almost seemed to the German that they sprang from the ground.

"Are you all ready?" called a voice, Bud Evans' voice.

"Here—"

"Here—"

"All ready?"

"Yes—"

"We're off, then."

There was a sudden, confused trampling, as of cattle in stampede; a musical creaking of heavy saddles; a knife-like swish of many quirts through the air; a chorus of dull, chesty groans as the rowels of long spurs bit the flanks of the mustangs, and they were gone—down the narrow street, out upon the prairie, their hoof beats pattering diminuendo into silence; a cloud of dust, grayish in the starlight, marking the way they had taken.

Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, came running excitedly up from a side street. He stopped in front of the hotel, breathlessly. Holding his sides, he followed with his eyes the trail of dust leading out into the night.

"Have they gone?" he panted. "I can't find another horse in town."

"Where is it to?" sputtered the German.

"Have they gone, I say?"

Hans gasped.

"Yes, to be sure."

"They'll never make it." The blacksmith mopped his brow with conviction. "He has an hour's start."

Hans grasped the big man by the coat.

"Who is too late?" he emphasized. "Where are they going?"

Jim Donovan turned about, great pity for such density in his eyes.

"Is it possible you don't understand? It's to Ichabod Maurice's they're going, to tell him of Arnold." The speaker mopped his face anew. "It's useless though. They're too late," he completed.

"But Arnold is not there," protested the German. "He went for a rabbit, out on the breaking. He so told me."

"He lied to you. He's mad. I tell you they're too late," repeated the smith, obstinately.

Hans clung tenaciously to the collar.

"Some one knew and told them?" He pointed in the direction the dust indicated.

"Yes, Bud Evans; but they wouldn't believe him at first, and"—bitterly—"and waited." Donovan shook himself free, and started down the walk. "I'm going to bed," he announced conclusively.

Meanwhile the cloud of dust was moving out over the prairie like the wind. The pace was terrific, and the tough little ponies were soon puffing steadily. Small game, roused from its sleep by the roadside, sprang winging into the night. Once a coyote, surprised, ran a distance confusedly ahead in the roadway; then, an indistinct black ball, it vanished amongst the tall grass.

Well out on the prairie, Bud Evans, the leader, raised in his stirrups and looked ahead. There was no light beyond where the little cottage should be. The rowels of his spur dug anew at the flank of his pony as he turned a voice like a fog-horn back over his shoulder.

"The place is dark, boys," he called. "Hurry."

Answering, a muttering sound, not unlike an approaching storm, passed along the line, and in accompaniment the quirts cut the air anew.

Silent as the grave was the little farmstead when, forty odd minutes from the time of starting, they steamed up at the high fence bounding the yard. One of Ichabod's farm horses whinnied a lone greeting from the barn as they hastily dismounted and swarmed within the inclosure.

"We're too late," prophesied a voice.

"I'm glad my name's not Arnold, if we are," responded another, threateningly.

Hurrying up the path in advance, the little land-agent stumbled over a soft, dark object, and a curse fell from his lips as he recognized the dead body of the big collie.

"Yes, we're too late," he echoed.

The door of the house swung ajar, creaking upon its hinges; and, as penetrates the advance wave of a flood, the men swarmed through the doorway inside, until the narrow room was blocked. Simultaneously, like torches, lighted matches appeared aloft in their hands, and the tiny whitewashed room flashed into light. As simultaneously there sprang from the mouth of each man an oath, and another, and another. Waiting outside, not a listener but knew the meaning of that sound; and big, hairy faces crowded tightly to the one small window.

For a moment not a man in the line stirred. Death was to them no stranger; but death such as this—

In more than one hand the match burned down until it left a mark like charcoal, and without calling attention. One and all they stood spellbound, their eyes on the floor, their lips unconsciously uttering the speech universal of anger and of horror, the instinctive language of anathema.

On the floor, sprawling, as falls a lifeless body, lay the long Ichabod. On his forehead, almost geometrically near the centre, was a tiny, black spot, around it a lighter red blotch; his face otherwise very white; his hair, on the side toward which he leaned, a little matted; that was all.

Prostrate across him, in an attitude of utter abandon, reposed the body of a woman, soft, graceful, motionless now as that of the man: the body of Camilla Maurice. One hand had held his head and was stained dark. On her lips was another stain, but lighter. The meaning of that last mark came as a flash to the spectators, and the room grew still as the figures on the floor.

Suddenly in the silence the men caught their breath, with the quick guttural note that announces the unexpected. That there was no remaining life they had taken for granted—and Camilla's lips had moved! They stared as at sight of a ghost; all except Curtis, the physician.

"A lamp, men," he demanded, pressing his ear to Camilla's chest.

"Help me here, Evans," he continued without turning. "I think she's fainted is all," and together they carried their burden into the tiny sleeping-room, closing the door behind.

That instant Ole, the Swede, thrust a curious head in at the outer doorway. He had noticed the light and the gathering, and came to ascertain their meaning. Wondering, his big eyes passed around the waiting group and from them to the floor. With that look self-consciousness left him; he crowded to the front, bending over the tall man and speaking his name.

"Mr. Maurice," he called. "Mr. Maurice."

He snatched off his own coat, rolling it under Ichabod's head, and with his handkerchief touched the dark spot on the forehead. It was clotted already and hardening, and realization came to the boy Swede. He stood up, facing the men, the big veins in his throat throbbing.

"Who did this?" he thundered, crouching for a spring like a great dog. "Who did this, I say?"

It was the call to action. In the sudden horror of the tragedy the big fellows had momentarily forgotten their own grim epilogue. Now, at the words, they turned toward the door. But the Swede was in advance, blocking the passage.

"Tell me first who did this thing," he challenged, threateningly.

A hand was laid gently upon his shoulder.

"Asa Arnold, my boy," answered a quiet voice, which continued, in response to a sudden thought, "You live near here; have you seen him to-night?"

The Swede dropped the bar.

"The little man who stays with Hans Becher?"

The questioner nodded.

"Yes, a half-hour ago." The boy-man understood now. "He stopped at my house, and—"

"Which direction did he go?"

Ole stepped outside, his arm stretched over the prairie, white now in the moonlight.

"That way," he indicated. "East."

As there had been quiescence before, now there was action. No charge of cavalry was ever more swift than their sudden departure.

"East, toward Schooner's ranch," was called and repeated as they made their way back to the road; and, following, the wiry little bronchos groaned in unison as the back cinch to each one of the heavy saddles, was, with one accord, drawn tight. Then, widening out upon the reflected whiteness of prairie, there spread a great black crescent. A moment later came silence, broken only by the quivering call of a lone coyote.

Ole watched them out of sight, then turned back to the door; the mood of the heroic passed, once more the timid, retiring Swede. But now he was not alone. Bud Evans was quietly working over the body on the floor, laying it out decently as the quick ever lay out the dead.

"Evans," called the doctor from the bedroom. As the agent responded, Ole heard the smothered cry of a woman in pain.

The big boy hesitated, then sat down on the doorstep. There was nothing now for him to do, and suddenly he felt very tired. His head dropped listlessly into his hands; like a great dog, he waited, watching.

Minutes passed. On the table the oil lamp sputtered and burned lower. Out in the stable the horse repeated its former challenging whinny. Once again through the partition the listener caught the choking wail of pain, and the muffled sound of the doctor's voice in answer.

At last Bud Evans came to the door, his face very white. "Water," he requested, and Ole ran to the well and back. Then, impassive, he sat down again to wait.

Time passed, so long a time it seemed to the watcher that the riders must soon be returning. Finally Evans emerged from the side room, walking absently, his face gray in the lamplight.

The Swede stood up.

"Camilla Maurice, is she hurt?" he asked.

The little agent busied himself making a fire.

"She's dead," he answered slowly.

"Dead, you say?"

"Yes, dead,"—very quietly.

The fire blazed up and lit the room, shining unpityingly upon the face of the man on the floor.

Evans noticed, and drawing off his own coat spread it over the face and hands, covering them from sight; then, uncertain, he returned and sat down, mechanically holding his palms to the blaze.

A moment later Dr. Curtis appeared at the tiny bedroom entrance; and, emerging as the little man had done before him, he closed the door softly behind. In his arms he carried a blanket, carefully rolled. From the depths of its folds, as he slowly crossed the room toward the stove, there escaped a sudden cry, muffled, unmistakable.

The doctor sank down wearily in a chair. Ole, the boy-faced, without a question brought in fresh wood, laying it down on the floor very, very softly.

"Will he—live?" asked Bud Evans, suddenly, with an uncertain glance at the obscuring blanket; and hearing the query, the Swede paused in his work to listen.

The big doctor hesitated, and cleared his throat.

"I think so; though—God forgive me—I hope not." And he cleared his throat again.



JOURNEY'S END

I

"Steve!" It was the girl who spoke, but the man did not seem to hear. He was staring through the window, unseeingly, into the heart of his bitter foe, Winter. He sat silent, helpless.

"Steve!"

At last he awoke.

"Mollie!—girlie!"

An hour had passed since he left the doctor's office to reel and stagger drunkenly through the slush and the sleet, and the icy blasts, which bit cruelly into his very vitals.

Now he and Mollie were alone in the tiny library. Babcock had been warmed, washed, fed. Seemingly without volition on his part, he was before the hard-coal blaze, his feet on the fender, the light carefully shaded from his eyes. Once upon a time—

But Steve Babcock, master mechanic, had not lost his nerve—once upon a time.

"Steve"—the voice was as soft as the wide brown eyes, as the dainty oval chin—"Steve, tell me what it is."

The man's hand, palm outward, dropped wearily, eloquently. That was all.

"But tell me," the girl's chair came closer, so that she might have touched him, "you went to see the doctor?"

"Yes."

"And he—?"

Again the silent, hopeless gesture, more fear-inspiring than words.

"Don't keep me in suspense, please." A small hand was on the man's knee, now, frankly unashamed. "Tell me what he said."

For an instant there was silence, then Babcock shrugged awkwardly, in an effort at nonchalance.

"He said I was—was—" in spite of himself, the speaker paused to moisten his lips—"a dead man."

"Steve!"

Not a word this time; not even a shrug.

"Steve, you—you're not—not joking with me?"

Lower and lower, still in silence, dropped the man's chin.

"Steve," in a steadier voice, "please answer me. You're not joking?"

"Joking!" At last the query had pierced the fear-dulled brain. "Joking! God, no! It's real, real, deadly real, that's what ... Oh, Mollie—!" Instinctively, as a child, the man's head had gone to the girl's lap. Though never before had they spoken of love or of marriage, neither noted the incongruity now. "It's all over. We'll never be married, never again get out into the country together, never even see the green grass next Spring—at least I won't—never.... Oh, Mollie, Mollie!" The man's back rose and fell spasmodically. His voice broke. "Mollie, make me forget; I can't bear to think of it. Can't! Can't!"

Not a muscle of the girl's body stirred; she made no sound. No one in advance would have believed it possible, but it was true. Five minutes passed. The man became quiet.

"Steve," the voice was very even, "what else did the doctor say?"

"Eh?" It was the doddering query of an old man.

The girl repeated the question, slowly, with infinite patience, as though she were speaking to a child.

"What else did the doctor say?"

Her tranquillity in a measure calmed the man.

"Oh, he said a lot of things; but that's all I remember—what I told you. It was the last thing, and he kind of tilted back in his chair. The spring needed oil; it fairly screamed. I can hear it now.

"'Steve Babcock,' said he, 'you've got to go some place where it's drier, where the air's pure and clean and sweet the year round. Mexico's the spot for you, or somewhere in the Far West where you can spend all your time in the open—under the roof of Heaven.'

"He leaned forward, and again that cursed spring interrupted.

"'If you don't go, and go right away,' he said, 'as sure as I'm talking to you, you're a dead man.'"

Babcock straightened, and, leaden-eyed, looked dully into the blaze.

"Those," he whispered, "were his last words."

"And if you do go?"—very quietly.

"He said I had a chance—a fighting chance." Once more the hopeless, deprecatory gesture.

"But what's the use? You know, as well as I, that I haven't a hundred dollars to my name. He might just as well have told me to go to the moon.

"We poor folks are like rats in a trap when they turn the water on—helpless. We—"

Babcock had wandered on, forgetting, for the moment, that it was his own case he was analyzing. Now of a sudden it recurred to him, cumulatively, crushingly and, as before, his head instinctively sought refuge.

"We can't do anything but take our medicine, Mollie—just take our medicine."

Patter, patter sounded the sleet against the window-panes, mingling with the roar of the wind in the chimney, with the short, quick breaths of the man. In silence he reached out, took one of the girl's hands captive, and held it against his cheek.

For a minute—five minutes—she did not stir, did not utter a sound; only the soft oval face tightened until its gentle outlines grew sharp, and the brown skin almost white.

All at once her lips compressed; she had reached a decision.

"Steve, sit up, please; I can talk to you better so." Pityingly, protectingly, she placed an arm around him and drew him close; not as man to maid, but—ah, the pity of it!—as a feeble child to its mother.

"Listen to what I say. To-day is Thursday. Next Monday you are going West, as the doctor orders."

"What—what did you say, Mollie?"

"Next Monday you go West."

"You mean, after all, I'm to have a chance? I'm not going to die like—like a rat?"

For a moment, a swiftly passing moment, it was the old vital Steve who spoke; the Babcock of a year ago; then, in quick recession, the mood passed.

"You don't know what you're talking about, girl. I can't go, I tell you. I haven't the money."

"I'll see that you have the money, Steve."

"You?"

"I've been teaching for eight years, and living at home all the while."

The man, surprised out of his self centredness, looked wonderingly, unbelievingly, at her.

"You never told me, Mollie."

"No, I never saw the need before."

The man's look of wonder passed. Another—fearful, dependent, the look of a child in the dark—took its place.

"But—alone, Mollie! A strange land, a strange people, a strange tongue! Oh, I hate myself, girl, hate myself! I've lost my nerve. I can't go alone. I can't."

"You're not going alone, Steve." There was a triumphant note in her voice that thrilled the man through and through. She continued:

"Only this morning—I don't know why I did it; it seems now like Providence pointing the way—I read in the paper about the rich farm lands in South Dakota that are open for settlement. I thought of you at the time, Steve; how such a life might restore your health; but it seemed so impossible, so impracticable, that I soon forgot about it.

"But—Steve—we can each take up a quarter-section—three hundred and twenty acres, altogether. Think of it! We'll soon be rich. There you will have just the sort of outdoor life the doctor says you need."

He looked at her, marvelling.

"Mollie—you don't mean it—now, when I'm—this way!" He arose, his breath coming quick, a deep blot of red in the centre of each cheek. "It can't be true when—when you'd never let me say anything before."

"Yes, Steve, it's true."

She was so calm, so self-possessed and withal so determined, that the man was incredulous.

"That you'll marry me? Say it, Mollie!"

"Yes, I'll marry you."

"Mollie!" He took a step forward, then of a sudden, abruptly halted.

"But your parents," in swift trepidation. "Mollie, they—"

"Don't let's speak of them,"—sharply. Then in quick contrition, her voice softened; once more it struck the maternal note.

"Pardon me, I'm very tired. Come. We have a spare room; you mustn't go home to-night."

The man stopped, coughed, advanced a step, then stopped again.

"Mollie, I can't thank you; can't ever repay you—"

"You mustn't talk of repaying me," she said shyly, her dark face coloring. It was the first time during the interview that she had shown a trace of embarrassment.

"Come," she said, meeting his look again, her hand on the door; "it's getting late. You must not venture out."

A moment longer the man hesitated, then obeyed. Not until he was very near, so near that he could touch her, did a vestige of his former manhood appear. He paused, and their eyes were locked in a soul-searching look. Then all at once his arm was round her waist, his face beside her face.

"Mollie, girl, won't you—just once?"

"No, no—not that! Don't ask it." Passionately the brown hands flew to the brown cheeks, covering them protectingly. But at once came thought, the spirit of sacrifice, and contrition for the involuntary repulse.

"Forgive me, Steve; I'm unaccountable to-night." Her voice, her manner were constrained, subdued. She accepted his injured look without comment, without further defence. She saw the perplexed look on his thin face; then she reached forward—up—and her two soft hands brought his face down to the level of her own.

Deliberately, voluntarily, she kissed him fair upon the lips.

II

The sun was just peering over the rim of the prairie, when Mrs. Warren turned in from the dusty road, picked her way among the browning weeds to the plain, unpainted, shanty-like structure which marked the presence of a homesteader. Except to the east, where stood the tents and shacks of the new railroad's construction gang, not another human habitation broke the dull, monotonous rolling sea of prairie.

Mrs. Warren pounded vigorously upon the rough boards of the door.

A full half-minute she waited; then she glared petulantly at the unresponsive barrier, and pounded upon it again.

Ordinarily she would have waited patiently, for the multitude of duties of one day often found Mrs. Babcock still weary with the dawning of the next—especially since Steve had allied himself with Jack Warren's engineering corps.

Funds had run low, and the two valetudinarians had reached the stage of desperation where they were driven to acknowledge failure, when Jack Warren happened along, in the van of the new railroad.

The work of home-building, from the raw material, had been too much for Steve's enfeebled physique; so it happened that Mollie performed most of his share, as well as all of her own. Yet Steve toiled to the limit of his endurance, and each day, at sundown, flung himself upon his blanket, spread beneath the stars, dog-tired, fairly trembling with weariness. But he soon developed a prodigious appetite, and, after the first few weeks, slept each night like a dead man, until sunrise.

This morning Annie Warren was too full of her errand to pause an instant. She stood a moment listening, one ear to the splintery, unfinished boards, then—

"Mollie," she ventured, "are you awake?"

No answer.

"Mollie"—more insistent, "wake up and let me in."

Still no response.

"Mollie," for the third time, "it is I, Annie; may I enter?"

"Come." The voice was barely audible.

Within the uncomfortably low, dim room the visitor impetuously crossed the earthen floor half-way to a rude bunk built against the wall, then paused, her round, childlike face soberly lengthening.

"Mollie, you have been crying!" she charged, resentfully, as if the act constituted a personal offence. "You can't deceive me. The pillow is soaked, and your eyes are red." She came forward, impulsively, and threw herself on the bed, her arm about the other.

"What is it? Tell me—your friend—Annie."

Beneath the light coverlet, Mollie Babcock made a motion of deprecation, almost of repugnance.

"It is nothing. Please don't pay any attention to me."

"But it is something. Am I not your friend?"

For a moment neither spoke. Annie Warren all at once became conscious that the other woman was looking at her in a way she had never done before.

"Assuredly you are my friend, Annie. But just the same, it's nothing." The look altered until it became a smile.

"Tell me, instead, why you are here," Mollie went on. "It is not usual at this time of day."

Annie Warren felt the rebuff, and she was hurt.

"It is nothing." The visitor was on her feet, her voice again resentful; her chin was held high, while her long lashes drooped. "Pardon me for intruding, for—"

"Annie!"

No answer save the quiver of a sensitive red lip.

"Annie, child, pardon me. I wouldn't for the world hurt you; but it is so hard, what you ask." Mollie Babcock rose, now, likewise. "However, if you wish—"

"No, no!" The storm was clearing. "It was all my fault. I know you'd rather not." She had grasped Mollie's arms, and was forcing her backward, toward the bunk, gently, smilingly. "Be still. I've something to tell you. Are you quite ready to listen?"

"Yes, I'm quite ready."

"You haven't the slightest idea what it is? You couldn't even guess?"

"No, I couldn't even guess."

"I'll tell you, then." The plump Annie was bubbling like a child before a well-filled Christmas stocking. "It's Jack: he's coming this very day. A big, fierce Indian brought the letter this morning." She sat down tailor fashion on the end of the bunk. "He nearly ate up Susie—Jack christened her Susie because she's a Sioux—because she wouldn't let him put the letter right into my own hand. That's why I'm up so early."

She looked slyly at the woman on the bed.

"Who do you suppose is coming with him?" she asked.

"I'm sure I don't know," in a tone of not caring, either.

"Guess, Mollie!"

"Steve?"

"Of course—Steve. You knew all the time, only you wouldn't admit it. Oh, I'm so glad! I want to hug some one. Isn't it fine?"

"Yes, fine indeed. But you don't mean that you want to hug Steve?"

"No, goose. You know I meant Jack; but I—" She regarded her friend doubtfully. But Mollie Babcock was dressing rapidly, and her face was averted.

"And Mollie, I didn't tell you all—almost the best. We're going home, Jack says; going right away; this very week, maybe."

For a moment the dressing halted. "I am very glad—for you," said Mollie, in an even voice.

"Glad, for me!" mimickingly, baitingly. "Mollie Babcock, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were envious."

Mollie said nothing.

"Or weren't glad your husband is coming."

Still no word.

"Or—or—Mollie, what have I done?" Annie cried in dismay. "Don't cry so; I was only joking. Of course you know that I didn't mean that you envied our good luck, or that you wouldn't be crazy to see Steve."

"But it's so. God help me, it's so!"

"Mollie!" Mrs. Warren was aghast. "Forgive me! I'm ashamed of myself!"

"There's nothing to forgive; it's so."

"Please don't." The two were very close, very tense, but not touching. "Don't say any more. I didn't hear—"

"You did hear. And you suspected, or you wouldn't have suggested!"

"Mollie, I never dreamed. I—"

Of a sudden the older woman faced about. Seizing the other by the shoulders, she held her prisoner. She fixed the frightened woman's eyes with a stern look.

"Will you swear that you never knew—that it was mere chance—what you said?"

"Yes."

"You swear you didn't?"—the grip tightened—"you swear it?"

"I swear—oh, you're hurting me!"

Mollie Babcock let her hands drop.

"I believe you"—wearily. "It seemed that everybody knew. God help me!" She sank to the bed, her face in her hands. "I believe I'm going mad!"

"Mollie—Mollie Babcock! You mustn't talk so—you mustn't!" The seconds ticked away. Save for the quick catch of suppressed sobs, not a sound was heard in the mean, austere little room; not an echo penetrated from the outside world.

Then suddenly the brown head lifted from the pillow, and Mollie faced almost fiercely about.

"You think I am—am mad already." Then, feverishly: "Don't you?"

Helpless at a crisis, Annie Warren could only stand silent, the pink, childish under-lip held tight between her teeth to prevent a quiver. Her fingers played nervously with the filmy lace shawl about her shoulders.

Mollie advanced a step. "Don't you?"

Annie found her voice.

"No, no, no! Oh, Mollie, no, of course not! You—Mollie—" Instinct all at once came to her rescue. With a sudden movement she gathered the woman in her arms, her tender heart quivering in her voice and glistening in her eyes. "Mollie, I can't bear to have you so! I love you, Mollie. Tell me what it is—me—your friend, Annie."

Mollie's lips worked without speech, and Annie became insistent.

"Tell me, Mollie. Let me share the ache at your heart. I love you!"

Here was the crushing straw to one very, very heartsick and very weary. For the first time in her solitary life, Mollie Babcock threw reticence to the winds, and admitted another human being into the secret places of her confidence.

"If you don't think me already mad, you will before I'm through." Like a caged wild thing that can not be still, she was once more on her feet, vibrating back and forth like a shuttle. "I'm afraid of myself at times, afraid of the future. It's like the garret used to be after dark, when we were children: it holds only horrors.

"Child, child!" She paused, her arms folded across her breast, her throat a-throb. "You can't understand—thank God, you never will understand—what the future holds for me. You are going back home; back to your own people, your own life. You've been here but a few months. To you it has been a lark, an outing, an experience. In a few short weeks it will be but a memory, stowed away in its own niche, the pleasant features alone remaining vivid.

"Even, while here, you've never known the life itself. You've had Jack, the novelty of a strange environment, your anticipation of sure release. You are merely like a sightseer, locked for a minute in a prison-cell, for the sake of a new sensation.

"You can't understand, I say. You are this, and I—I am the life-prisoner in the cell beyond, peering at you through the bars, viewing you and your mock imprisonment."

Once more the speaker was in motion, to and fro, to and fro, in the shuttle-trail. "The chief difference is, that the life-prisoner has a hope of pardon; I have none—absolutely none."

"Mollie"—pleadingly, "you mustn't. I'll ask Jack to give Steve a place at home, and you can go—"

"Go!" The bitterness of her heart welled up and vibrated in the word. "Go! We can't go, now or ever. It's death to Steve if we leave. I've got to stay here, month after month, year after year, dragging my life out until I grow gray-haired—until I die!" She halted, her arms tensely folded, her breath coming quick. Only the intensity of her emotion saved the attitude from being histrionic. In a sudden outburst, she fiercely apostrophized:

"Oh, Dakota! I hate you, I hate you! Because I am a woman, I hate you! Because I would live in a house, and not in this endless dreary waste of a dead world, I hate you! Because your very emptiness and solitude are worse than a prison, because the calls of the living things that creep and fly over your endless bosom are more mournful than death itself, I hate you! Because I would be free, because I respect sex, because of the disdain for womanhood that dwells in your crushing silence, I hate—oh, my God, how I hate you!" She threw her arms wide, in a frantic gesture of rebellion.

"I want but this," she cried passionately: "to be free; free, as I was at home, in God's country. And I can never be so here—never, never, never! Oh, Annie, I'm homesick—desperately, miserably homesick! I wish to Heaven I were dead!"

Annie Warren, child-woman that she was, was helpless, when face to face with the unusual. Her senses were numbed, paralyzed. One thought alone suggested itself.

"But"—haltingly—"for Steve's sake—certainly, for him—"

"Stop! As you love me, stop!" Again no suggestion of the histrionic in the passionate voice. "Don't say that now. I can't stand it. I—oh, I don't mean that! Forget that I said it. I'm not responsible this morning. Please leave me."

She was prostrate on the bed at last, her whole body a-tremble.

"But—Mollie—"

"Go—go!" cried Mollie, wildly. "Please go!"

Awed to silence, Annie Warren stared helplessly a moment, then gathered her shawl about her shoulders, and slipped silently away.

III

Mollie Babcock was listlessly going about some imperative domestic task, behind the mean structure which represented home for her, when Steve came upon her.

She was not looking for him. He had been gone so long, out there somewhere, in that abomination of desolation, building a railroad, that the morbid fancy had come to dwell with her that the prairie had swallowed him, and that she would never see him more. So he came upon her unawares.

The buffalo grass rustled with the passage of her skirts. His eyes lighted, the man seemed to grow in stature—six feet of sun-blessed, primitive health. Now was the time—

"Mollie!"

There was a sudden gasp from the woman. With a hand to her throat, she wheeled swiftly round, confronting him.

"I'm back at last. Aren't you glad to see me?"

She was as pallid as an Easter-lily; pallid, despite the fact that she had decided, and had nerved herself for his coming.

Steve was puzzled. "Mollie, girl"—he did not advance, merely stood as he was—"aren't you glad to see me? Won't you—come?"

There was a long space of silence; the woman did not stir. Then a strange, inarticulate cry was smothered in her throat. Swiftly, all but desperately, she stumbled blindly forward, although her eyes were shining with the enchantment of his presence; close to him she came, flung her arms around his broad chest, and strained him to her with the abandon of a wild creature.

"Steve!" tensely, "how could you? Glad? You know I'm glad—oh, so glad! You startled me, that was all."

"Mollie, girlie"—he lifted her at arms' length, joying in this testimony of his renewed strength and manhood—"I rode all last night to get here—to see you. Are you happy, girlie, happy?"

"Yes, Steve"—her voice was chastened to a murmur—"I—I'm very happy."

"That completes my happiness." Drawing her tenderly to him, he kissed her again and again—hungrily, passionately; then, abruptly, he fell to scrutinizing her, with a meaning that she was quick to interpret.

"Isn't there something you've forgotten, Mollie?"

"No, I've not forgotten, Steve." She drew the bearded face down to her own. Had Steve been observant he would have noticed that the lips so near his own were trembling; but he was not observant, this Steve Babcock. Once, twice and again she kissed him.

"I think I'll never forget, Steve, man—never!" With one hand she indicated the prairie that billowed away to the skyline. "This is our home, and I love it because it is ours. I shall always have you—I know now, Steve. And I'm the happiest, most contented woman in all the wide world."

She drew away with a sudden movement, her face aglow with love and happiness. She was pulling at his arm with all her might.

"Where are you going?" he asked, surprised.

"Over to the camp—to Journey's End. I must tell Annie Warren just as soon as ever I can find her."



A PRAIRIE IDYL

A beautiful moonlight night early in September, the kind of night one remembers for years, when the air is not too cold to be pleasant, and yet has a suggestion of the frost that is to come. A kind of air that makes one think thoughts which cannot be put into words, that calls up sensations one cannot describe; an air which breeds restless energy; an air through which Mother Nature seems to speak, saying—"Hasten, children; life is short and you have much to do."

It was nearing ten o'clock, and a full moon lit up the rolling prairie country of South Dakota for miles, when the first team of a little train of six moved slowly out of the dark shadow blots thrown by the trees at the edge of the Big Sioux, advancing along a dim trail towards the main road. From the first wagon sounded the suggestive rattle of tin cooking-utensils, and the clatter of covers on an old cook stove. Next behind was a load piled high with a compound heap of tents, tennis nets, old carpets, hammocks, and the manifold unclassified paraphernalia which twenty young people will collect for a three weeks' outing.

These wagons told their own story. "Camp Eden," the fanciful name given to the quiet, shady spot where the low chain of hills met the river; the spot where the very waters seemed to lose themselves in their own cool depths, and depart sighing through the shallows beyond,—Camp Eden was deserted, and a score of very tired campers were reluctantly returning to home and work.

Last in the line and steadily losing ground, came a single trap carrying two people. One of them, a young man with the face of a dreamer, was speaking. The spell of the night was upon him.

"So this is the last of our good time—and now for work." He stopped the horse and stood up in the wagon. "Good-bye, little Camp Eden. Though I won't be here, yet whenever I see the moon a-shining so—and the air feeling frosty and warm and restless—and the corn stalks whitening, and the young prairie chickens calling—you'll come back to me, and I'll think of you—and of the Big Sioux—and of—" His eyes dropped to a smooth brown head, every coil of the walnut hair glistening.

It made him think of the many boat rides they two had taken together in the past two weeks, when he had watched the moonlight shimmering on rippling, running water, and compared the play of light upon it and upon that same brown head—and had forgotten all else in the comparison. He forgot all else now. He sat down, and the horse started. The noisy wagons ahead had passed out of hearing. The pair were alone.

He was silent a moment, looking sideways at the girl. The moonlight fell full upon her face, drawing clear the line of cheek and chin; bringing out the curve of the drooping mouth and the shadow from the long lashes. She seemed to the sensitive lad more than human. He had loved her for years, with the pure silent love known only to such a nature as his—and never had he loved her so wildly as now.

He was the sport of a multitude of passions; love and ambition were the strongest, and they were fighting a death struggle with each other. How could he leave her for years—perhaps never see her again—and yet how could he ask her to be the wife of such as he was now—a mere laborer? And again, his college course, his cherished ambition for years—how could he give it up; and yet he felt—he knew she loved him, and trusted him.

He had been looking squarely at her. She turned, and their eyes met. Each knew the thought of the other, and each turned away. He hesitated no longer; he would tell her all, and she should judge. His voice trembled a little as he said: "I want to tell you a story, and ask you a question—may I?"

She looked at him quickly, then answered with a smile: "I'm always glad to hear stories—and at the worst one can always decline to answer questions."

He looked out over the prairie, and saw the lights of the little town—her home—in the distance.

"It isn't a short story, and I have only so long"—he pointed along the road ahead to the village beyond—"to tell it in." He settled back in the seat, and began speaking. His voice was low and soft, like the prairie night-wind.

"Part of the story you know; part of it I think you have guessed; a little of it will be new. For the sake of that little, I will tell all."

"Thirteen years ago, what is now a little prairie town—then a very little town indeed—gained a new citizen—a boy of nine. A party of farmers found him one day, sleeping in a pile of hay, in the market corner. He lay so they could see how his face was bruised—and how, though asleep, he tossed in pain. He awoke, and, getting up, walked with a limp. Where he came from no one knew, and he would not tell; but his appearance told its own story. He had run away from somewhere. What had happened they could easily imagine.

"It was harvest-time and boys, even though minus a pedigree, were in demand; so he was promptly put on a farm. Though only a child, he had no one to care for him—and he was made to work ceaselessly.

"Years passed and brought a marked change in the boy. How he lived was a marvel. It was a country of large families, and no one cared to adopt him. Summers, he would work for his board and clothes, and in winter, by the irony of Nature, for his board only; yet, perhaps because it was the warmest place he knew, he managed to attend district school.

"When a lad of fifteen he began to receive wages—and life's horizon seemed to change. He dressed neatly, and in winter came to school in the little prairie town. He was put in the lower grades with boys of ten, and even here his blunders made him a laughing-stock; but not for long, for he worked—worked always—and next year was put in the high school.

"There he established a precedent—doing four years' work in two—and graduated at eighteen. How he did it no one but he himself knew—studying Sundays, holidays, and evenings, when he was so tired that he had to walk the floor to keep awake—but he did it."

The speaker stopped a moment to look at his companion. "Is this a bore? Somehow I can't help talking to-night."

"No, please go on," said the girl quickly.

"Well, the boy graduated—but not alone. For two years he had worked side by side with a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl. From the time he had first seen her she was his ideal—his divinity. And she had never spoken with him five minutes in her life. After graduation, the girl went away to a big university. Her parents were wealthy, and her every wish was gratified."

Again the speaker hesitated. When he went on his face was hard, his voice bitter.

"And the boy—he was poor and he went back to the farm. He was the best hand in the country; for the work he received good wages. If he had worked hard before, he worked now like a demon. He thought of the girl away at college, and tried at first to crowd her from his memory—but in vain. Then he worked in self-defence—and to forget.

"He saw years slipping by—and himself still a farmhand. The thought maddened him, because he knew he was worthy of something better.

"Gradually, his whole life centred upon one object—to save money for college. Other boys called him close and cold; but he did not care. He seldom went anywhere, so intent was he upon his one object. On hot summer nights, tired and drowsy he would read until Nature rebelled, and he would fall asleep to dream of a girl—a girl with brown eyes that made one forget—everything. In winter, he had more time—and the little lamp in his room became a sort of landmark: it burned for hours after every other light in the valley had ceased shining.

"Four years passed, and at last the boy had won. In a month he would pass from the prairie to university life. He had no home, few friends—who spoke; those who did not were safely packed at the bottom of his trunk. His going from the little town would excite no more comment than had his coming. He was all ready, and for the first time in his life set apart a month—the last—as a vacation. He felt positively gay. He had fought a hard fight—and had won. He saw the dawning of a great light—saw the future as a battle-ground where he would fight; not as he was then, but fully equipped for the struggle.... But no matter what air-castles he built; they were such as young men will build to the end of time."

The speaker's voice lowered—stopped. He looked straight out over the prairie, his eyes glistening.

"If so far the boy's life had been an inferno, he was to be repaid. The girl—she of the brown eyes—was home once more, and they met again as members of a camping party." He half-turned in his seat to look at her, but she sat with face averted, so quiet, so motionless, that he wondered if she heard.

"Are you listening?" he asked.

"Listening!" Her voice carried conviction, so the lad continued.

"For a fortnight he lived a dream—and that dream was Paradise. He forgot the past, ignored the future, and lived solely for the moment—with the joy of Nature's own child. It was the pure love of the idealist and the dreamer—it was divine.

"Then came the reaction. One day he awoke—saw things as they were—saw again the satire of Fate. At the very time he left for college, she returned—a graduate. She was young, beautiful, accomplished. He was a mere farmhand, without money or education, homeless, obscure. The thought was maddening, and one day he suddenly disappeared from camp. He didn't say good-bye to any one; he felt he had no apology that he could offer. But he had to go, for he felt the necessity for work, longed for it, as a drunkard longs for liquor."

"Oh!" The exclamation came from the lips of the girl beside him. "I—we—all wondered why—."

"Well, that was why.

"He fell in with a threshing-crew, and asked to work for his board. They thought him queer, but accepted his offer. For two days he stayed with them, doing the work of two men. It seemed as if he couldn't do enough—he couldn't become tired. He wanted to think it all out, and he couldn't with the fever in his blood.

"At night he couldn't sleep—Nature was pitiless. He would walk the road for miles until morning.

"With the third day came relief. All at once he felt fearfully tired, and fell asleep where he stood. Several of the crew carried him to a darkened room, and there he slept as a dumb animal sleeps. When he awoke, he was himself again; his mind was clear and cool. He looked the future squarely in the face, now, and clearly, as if a finger pointed, he saw the path that was marked for him. He must go his way—and she must go hers. Perhaps, after four years or more—but the future was God's."

The boy paused. The lights of the town were nearing, now; but he still looked out over the moon-kissed prairie.

"The rest you know. The dreamer returned. The party scarcely knew him, for he seemed years older. There were but a few days more of camp life, and he spent most of the time with the girl. Like a malefactor out on bail, he was painting a picture for the future. He thought he had conquered himself—but he hadn't. It was the same old struggle. Was not love more than ambition or wealth? Had he not earned the right to speak? But something held him back. If justice to himself, was it justice to the girl? Conscience said 'No.' It was hard—no one knows how hard—but he said nothing."

Once more he turned to his companion, in his voice the tenderness of a life-long passion.

"This is the story: did the boy do right?" A life's work—greater than a life itself, hung on the answer to that question.

The girl understood it all. She had always known that she liked him; but now—now—As he had told his story, she had felt, first, pity, and then something else; something incomparably sweeter; something that made her heart beat wildly, that seemed almost to choke her with its ecstasy.

He loved her—had loved her all these years! He belonged to her—and his future lay in her hands.

His future! The thought fell upon her new-found happiness with the suddenness of a blow. She could keep him, but had she the right to do so? She saw in him something that he did not suspect—and that something was genius. She knew he had the ability to make for himself a name that would stand among the great names of the earth.

Then, did his life really belong to her? Did it not rather belong to himself and to the world?

She experienced a struggle, fierce as he himself had fought. And the boy sat silent, tense, waiting for her answer.

Yes, she must give him up; she would be brave. She started to speak, but the words would not come. Suddenly she buried her face in her hands, while the glistening brown head trembled with her sobs.

It was the last drop to the cup overflowing. A second, and then, his arms were around her. The touch was electrifying—it was oblivion—it was heaven—it was—but only a young lover knows what.

"You have answered," said the boy. "God forgive me—but I can't go away now."

Thus Fate sported with two lives.



THE MADNESS OF WHISTLING WINGS

CHAPTER I—SANDFORD THE EXEMPLARY

Ordinarily Sandford is sane—undeniably so. Barring the seventh, upon any other day of the week, fifty-one weeks in the year, from nine o'clock in the morning until six at night—omitting again a scant half-hour at noon for lunch—he may be found in his tight little box of an office on the fifth floor of the Exchange Building, at the corner of Main Avenue and Thirteenth Street, where the elevated makes its loop.

No dog chained beside his kennel is more invariably present, no caged songster more incontestably anchored. If you need his services, you have but to seek his address between the hours mentioned. You may do so with the same assurance of finding him on duty that you would feel, if you left a jug of water out of doors over night in a blizzard, that the jug, as a jug, would be no longer of value in the morning. He was, and is, routine impersonate, exponent of sound business personified; a living sermon against sloth and improvidence, and easy derelictions of the flesh.

That is to say, he is such fifty-one weeks out of the fifty-two. All through the frigid winter season, despite the lure of California limiteds or Havana liners, he holds hard in that den of his, with its floor and walls of sanitary tiling and its ceiling of white enamel, and hews—or grinds rather, for Sandford is a dental surgeon—close to the line.

All through the heat of summer, doggedly superior to the call of Colorado or the Adirondacks or the Thousand Islands, he comes and departs by the tick of the clock. Base-ball fans find him adamant; turf devotees, marble; golf enthusiasts, cold as the tiles beneath his feet.

Even in early June, when Dalton, whose suburban home is next door, returns, tanned and clear-eyed from a week-end at the lake—there is but one lake to Dalton—and calls him mysteriously back to the rear of the house, where, with a flourish, the cover is removed from a box the expressman has just delivered, to disclose a shining five-pound bass reposing upon its bed of packed ice—even then, hands in pockets, Sandford merely surveys and expresses polite congratulation. Certainly it is a fine fish, a noble fish, even; but for the sake of one like it—or, yes, granted a dozen such—to leave the office, the sanitary-tiled office, deserted for four whole days (especially when Dr. Corliss on the floor below is watching like a hawk)—such a crazy proceeding is not to be thought of.

Certainly he will not go along the next week end—or the next, either. The suggestion simply is unthinkable. Such digressions may be all right for the leisure class or for invalids; but for adults, live ones, strong and playing the game? A shrug and a tolerant smile end the discussion, as, hands still in his pockets, an after-dinner cigar firm between his teeth, Sandford saunters back across the dozen feet of sod separating his own domicile from that of his fallen and misguided neighbor.

"Dalton's got the fever again, bad," he comments to the little woman upon his own domain, whom he calls "Polly," or "Mrs. Sandford," as occasion dictates. She has been watching the preceding incident with inscrutable eyes.

"Yes?" Polly acknowledges, with the air of harkening to a familiar harangue while casting ahead, in anticipation of what was to come next.

"Curious about Dalton; peculiar twist to his mental machinery somewhere." Sandford blows a cloud of smoke and eyes it meditatively. "Leaving business that way, chopping it all to pieces in fact; and just for a fish! Curious!"

"Harry's got something back there that'll probably interest you," he calls out to me as I chug by in my last year's motor; "better stop and see."

"Yes," I acknowledge simply; and though Polly's eyes and mine meet we never smile, or twitch an eyelid, or turn a hair; for Sandford is observing—and this is only June.

So much for Dr. Jekyll Sandford, the Sandford of fifty-one weeks in the year.

Then, as inevitably as time rolls by, comes that final week; period of mania, of abandon; and in the mere sorcerous passage of a pair of whirring wings, Dr. Jekyll, the exemplary, is no more. In his place, wearing his shoes, audaciously signing his name even to checks, is that other being, Hyde: one absolutely the reverse of the reputable Jekyll; repudiating with scorn that gentleman's engagements; with brazen effrontery denying him utterly, and all the sane conventionality for which the name has become a synonyme.

Worst of all, rank blasphemy, he not only refuses to set foot in that modern sanitary office of enamel and tiling, at the corner of Thirteenth and Main, below which, by day and by night, the "L" trains go thundering, but deliberately holds it up to ridicule and derision and insult.

CHAPTER II—THE PRESAGE OF THE WINGS

And I, the observer—worse, the accessory—know, in advance, when the metamorphosis will transpire.

When, on my desk-pad calendar the month recorded is October, and the day begins with a twenty, there comes the first premonition of winter; not the reality, but a premonition; when, at noon the sun is burning hot, and, in the morning, frost glistens on the pavements; when the leaves are falling steadily in the parks, and not a bird save the ubiquitous sparrow is seen, I begin to suspect.

But when at last, of an afternoon, the wind switches with a great flurry from south to dead north, and on the flag-pole atop of the government building there goes up this signal: [Transcriber's Note: signal flag image here]; and when later, just before retiring, I surreptitiously slip out of doors, and, listening breathlessly, hear after a moment despite the clatter of the wind, high up in the darkness overhead that muffled honk! honk! honk! of the Canada-goose winging on its southern journey in advance of the coming storm—then I know.

So well do I know, that I do not retire—not just yet. Instead, on a pretext, any pretext, I knock out the ashes from my old pipe, fill it afresh, and wait. I wait patiently, because, inevitable as Fate, inevitable as that call from out the dark void of the sky, I know there will come a trill of the telephone on the desk at my elbow; my own Polly—whose name happens to be Mary—is watching as I take down the receiver to reply.

CHAPTER III—THE OTHER MAN

It is useless to dissimulate longer, then. I am discovered, and I know I am discovered. "Hello, Sandford," I greet without preface.

"Sandford!" (I am repeating in whispers what he says for my Polly's benefit.) "Sandford! How the deuce did you know?"

"Know?" With the Hyde-like change comes another, and I feel positively facetious. "Why I know your ring of course, the same as I know your handwriting on a telegram. What is it? I'm busy."

"I'm busy, too. Don't swell up." (Imagine "swell up" from Sandford, the repressed and decorous!) "I just wanted to tell you that the honkers are coming."

"No! You're imagining, or you dreamed it!... Anyway, what of it? I tell you I'm busy."

"Cut it out!" I'm almost scared myself, the voice is positively ferocious. "I heard them not five minutes ago, and besides, the storm signal is up. I'm getting my traps together now. Our train goes at three-ten in the morning, you know."

"Our-train-goes-at-three-ten—in-the-morning!"

"I said so."

"Our train?"

"Our train: the one which is to take us out to Rush Lake. Am I clear? I'll wire Johnson to meet us with the buckboard."

"Clear, yes; but go in the morning—Why, man, you're crazy! I have engagements for all day to-morrow."

"So have I."

"And the next day."

"Yes."

"And the next."

"A whole week with me. What of it?"

"What of it! Why, business—"

"Confound business! I tell you they're coming; I heard them. I haven't any more time to waste talking, either. I've got to get ready. Meet you at three-ten, remember."

"But—"

"Number, please," requests Central, wearily.

CHAPTER IV—CAPITULATION

Thus it comes to pass that I go; as I know from the first I shall go, and Sandford knows that I will go; and, most of all, as Mary knows that I will go.

In fact, she is packing for me already; not saying a word, but simply packing; and I—I go out-doors again, sidling into a jog beside the bow-window, to diminish the din of the wind in my ears, listening open-mouthed until—

Yes, there it sounds again; faint, but distinct; mellow, sonorous, vibrant. Honk! honk! honk! and again honk! honk! honk! It wafts downward from some place, up above where the stars should be and are not; up above the artificial illumination of the city; up where there are freedom, and space infinite, and abandon absolute.

With an effort, I force myself back into the house. I take down and oil my old double-barrel, lovingly, and try the locks to see that all is in order. I lay out my wrinkled and battered duck suit handy for the morning, after carefully storing away in an inner pocket, where they will keep dry, the bundle of postcards Mary brings me—first exacting a promise to report on one each day, when I know I shall be five miles from the nearest postoffice, and that I shall bring them all back unused.

And, last of all, I slip to bed, and to dreams of gigantic honkers serene in the blue above; of whirring, whistling wings that cut the air like myriad knife blades; until I wake up with a start at the rattle of the telephone beside my bed, and I know that, though dark as a pit of pitch, it is morning, and that Sandford is already astir.

CHAPTER V—ANTICIPATION

In the smoking-car forward I find Sandford. He is a most disreputable-looking specimen. Garbed in weather-stained corduroys, and dried-grass sweater, and great calfskin boots, he sprawls among gun-cases and shell-carriers—no sportsman will entrust these essentials to the questionable ministrations of a baggage-man—and the air about him is blue from the big cigar he is puffing so ecstatically. He nods and proffers me its mate.

"Going to be a great day," he announces succinctly, and despite a rigorous censorship there is a suggestion of excitement in the voice. "The wind's dead north, and it's cloudy and damp. Rain, maybe, about daylight."