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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Breath of Prairie and other stories, by
+Will Lillibridge
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Breath of Prairie and other stories
+
+Author: Will Lillibridge
+
+Illustrator: J. N. Marchand
+
+Release Date: June 26, 2009 [EBook #29245]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BREATH OF PRAIRIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A BREATH OF PRAIRIE
+
+AND OTHER STORIES
+
+
+
+
+By WILL LILLIBRIDGE
+
+ THE DOMINANT DOLLAR. Illustrated in color by Lester Ralph.
+ Crown 8vo . . . $1.50
+
+ BEN BLAIR, PLAINSMAN. Frontispiece in color by Maynard Dixon.
+ Seventieth thousand. Crown 8vo . . . $1.50
+
+ QUERCUS ALBA: The Veteran of the Ozarks.
+ With frontispiece. 16mo. Net . . . $.50
+
+A. C. MCCLURG & CO., Publishers
+
+CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: She wheeled swiftly round, confronting him. [See
+"Journey's End."]]
+
+
+
+
+A BREATH OF PRAIRIE
+
+AND OTHER STORIES
+
+BY WILL LILLIBRIDGE
+
+AUTHOR OF "BEN BLAIR," "THE DOMINANT DOLLAR," ETC.
+
+WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR
+
+BY J. N. MARCHAND
+
+CHICAGO
+
+A. C. McCLURG & CO.
+
+1911
+
+
+
+
+Copyright
+
+A. C. McCLURG & CO.
+
+1911
+
+Published April, 1911
+
+W. J. Hall Printing Company
+
+Chicago
+
+
+
+
+A TRIBUTE
+
+
+It is an accepted truth, I believe, that every novelist embodies in
+the personalities of his heroes some of his own traits of character.
+Those who were intimately acquainted with William Otis Lillibridge
+could not fail to recognize this in a marked degree. To a casual
+reader, the heroes of his five novels might perhaps suggest five
+totally different personalities, but one who knows them well will
+inevitably recognize beneath the various disguises the same dominant
+characteristics in them all. Whether it be Ben Blair the sturdy
+plainsman, Bob McLeod the cripple, Dr. Watson, Darley Roberts, or even
+How Landor the Indian, one finds the same foundation stones of
+character,--repression, virility, firmness of purpose, an abhorrence
+of artificiality or affectation,--love of Nature and of Nature's works
+rather than things man-made. And these were unquestionably the
+pronounced traits of Will Lillibridge's personality. Markedly
+reserved, silent, forceful, he was seldom found in the places where
+men congregate, but loved rather the company of books and of the great
+out-doors. Living practically his entire life on the prairies it is
+undoubtedly true that he was greatly influenced by his environment.
+And certain it is that he could never have so successfully painted the
+various phases of prairie-life without a sympathetic, personal
+knowledge.
+
+The story of his life is characteristically told in this brief
+autobiographical sketch, written at the request of an interested
+magazine.
+
+"I was born on a farm in Union County, Iowa, near the boundary of the
+then Dakota Territory. Like most boys bred and raised in an atmosphere
+of eighteen hours of work out of twenty-four, I matured early. At
+twelve I was a useful citizen, at fifteen I was to all practical
+purposes a man,--did a man's work whatever the need. In this capacity
+I was alternately farmer, rancher, cattleman. Something prompted me to
+explore a university and I went to Iowa, where for six years I
+vibrated between the collegiate, dental, and medical departments.
+After graduating from the dental in 1898 I drifted to Sioux Falls and
+began to practise my profession. As the years passed the roots sank
+deeper and I am still here.
+
+"Work? My writing is done entirely at night. The waiting-room,--the
+plum-tree,--requires vigorous shaking in the daytime. After dinner,--I
+have a den, telephone-proof, piano-proof, friend-proof. What
+transpires therein no one knows because no one has ever seen.
+
+"Recreation? I have a mania, by no means always gratified,--to be out
+of doors. Once each summer 'the Lady' and I go somewhere for a
+time,--and forget it absolutely. In this way we've been able to travel
+a bit. We,--again 'the Lady' and I,--steal an hour when we can, and
+drive a gasoline car, keeping within the speed laws when necessary.
+Once each Fall, when the first frost shrivels the corn-stalk and when,
+if you chance to be out of doors after dark you hear, away up
+overhead, invisible, the accelerating, throbbing, diminishing purr of
+wings that drives the sportsman mad,--the town knows me no more."
+
+Every novel may have a happy close, but a real life's story has but
+one inevitable ending,--Death.
+
+And to "the Lady" has been left the sorrowful task of writing "Finis"
+across the final page.
+
+January 29, 1909, he died at his home in Sioux Falls after a brief
+illness. But thirty-one years of age, he had won a place in literature
+so gratifying that one might well rest content with a recital of his
+accomplishments. But his youth suggests a tale that is only partly
+told and the conjecture naturally arises,--"What success might he not
+have won?" Five novels, "Ben Blair," "Where the Trail Divides," "The
+Dissolving Circle," "The Quest Eternal," and "The Dominant Dollar,"
+besides magazine articles, and a number of short stories (many of them
+appearing in this volume) were all written in the space of eight
+years' time, and, as he said, were entirely produced after nightfall.
+
+While interested naturally in the many phases of his life,--as a
+professional man, as an author, as the chief factor in the domestic
+drama,--yet most of all it pleases me to remember him as he appeared
+when under the spell of the prairies he loved so well. Tramping the
+fields in search of prairie-chicken or quail, a patient watcher in the
+rushes of a duck-pond, or merely lying flat on his back in the
+sunshine,--he was a being transformed. For he had in him much of the
+primitive man and his whole nature responded to the "call of the
+wild." But you who know his prairie-tales must have read between the
+lines,--for who, unless he loved the "honk" of the wild geese, could
+write, "to those who have heard it year by year it is the sweetest,
+most insistent of music. It is the spirit of the wild, of magnificent
+distances, of freedom impersonate"?
+
+To the late Mrs. Wilbur Teeters I am indebted for the following
+tribute, which appeared in the "Iowa Alumnus."
+
+"Dr. Lillibridge's field of romance was his own. Others have told of
+the Western mountains and pictured the great desert of the Southwest,
+but none has painted with so masterful a hand the great prairies of
+the Northwest, shown the lavish hand with which Nature pours out her
+gifts upon the pioneer, and again the calm cruelty with which she
+effaces him. In the midst of these scenes his actors played their
+parts and there he played his own part, clean in life and thought, a
+man to the last, slipping away upon the wings of the great storm which
+had just swept over his much-loved land, wrapped in the snowy mantle
+of his own prairies."
+
+                                              Edith Keller-Lillibridge
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    I A BREATH OF PRAIRIE                                           13
+   II THE DOMINANT IMPULSE                                          61
+  III THE STUFF OF HEROES                                           87
+   IV ARCADIA IN AVERNUS                                           109
+      Chapter    I  Prelude
+      Chapter   II  The Leap
+      Chapter  III  The Wonder of Prairie
+      Chapter   IV  A Revelation
+      Chapter    V  The Dominance of the Evolved
+      Chapter   VI  By a Candle's Flame
+      Chapter  VII  The Price of the Leap
+    V JOURNEY'S END                                                239
+   VI A PRAIRIE IDYL                                               265
+  VII THE MADNESS OF WHISTLING WINGS                               279
+      Chapter    I  Sandford the Exemplary
+      Chapter   II  The Presage of the Wings
+      Chapter  III  The Other Man
+      Chapter   IV  Capitulation
+      Chapter    V  Anticipation
+      Chapter   VI  "Mark the Right, Sandford!"
+      Chapter  VII  The Bacon What Am!
+      Chapter VIII  Feathered Bullets
+      Chapter   IX  Oblivion
+      Chapter    X  Upon "Wiping the Eye"
+      Chapter   XI  The Cold Gray Dawn
+ VIII A FRONTIER ROMANCE: A TALE OF JUMEL MANSION                  309
+   IX THE CUP THAT O'ERFLOWED: AN OUTLINE                          339
+    X UNJUDGED                                                     347
+   XI THE TOUCH HUMAN                                              367
+  XII A DARK HORSE                                                 373
+ XIII THE WORTH OF THE PRICE                                       393
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ She wheeled swiftly round, confronting him.              Frontispiece
+ They saw the hands which had gone to hips flash up and
+     forward like pistons, and two puffs of smoke like
+     escaping steam.                                                74
+ "You'll apologize."                                               190
+ The two men went East together.                                   326
+ He heard a voice ... and glanced back.                            388
+
+
+
+
+A BREATH OF PRAIRIE
+
+AND OTHER STORIES
+
+
+
+
+A BREATH OF PRAIRIE
+
+
+I
+
+
+Dense darkness of early morning wrapped all things within and without
+a square, story-and-a-half prairie farm-house. Silence, all-pervading,
+dense as the darkness, its companion, needed but a human ear to become
+painfully noticeable.
+
+Up-stairs in the half-story attic was Life. From one corner of the
+room deep, regular breathing marked the unvarying time of healthy
+physical life asleep. Nearby a clock beat loud automatic time, with a
+brassy resonance--healthy mechanical life awake. Man and machine, side
+by side, punctuated the passage of time.
+
+Alone in the darkness the mechanical mind of the clock conceived a bit
+of fiendish pleasantry. With violent, shocking clamor, its deafening
+alarm suddenly shattered the stillness.
+
+The two victims of the outrage sat up in bed and blinked sleepily at
+the dark. The younger, in a voice of wrath, relieved his feelings with
+a vigorously expressed opinion of the applied uses of things in
+general, and of alarm-clocks and milk pans in particular. He thereupon
+yawned prodigiously, and promptly began snoring away again, as though
+nothing had interrupted.
+
+The other man made one final effort, and came down hard upon the
+middle of the floor. Rough it was, uncarpeted, cold with the damp
+chill of early morning. He groped for a match, and dressed rapidly in
+the dim light, his teeth chattering a diminishing accompaniment until
+the last piece was on.
+
+Deep, regular breathing still came from the bed. The man listened a
+moment, irresolutely; then with a smile on his face he drew a feather
+from a pillow, and, rolling back the bed-clothes, he applied the
+feather's tip to the sleeper's bare soles, where experience had
+demonstrated it to be the most effective. Dodging the ensuing kick,
+he remarked simply, "I'll leave the light, Jim. Better hurry--this is
+going to be a busy day."
+
+Outside, a reddish light in the sky marked east, but over all else
+there lay only starlight, as, lantern in hand, he swung down the
+frozen path. With the opening barn door there came a puff of warm
+animal breath. As the first rays of light entered, the stock stood up
+with many a sleepy groan, and bright eyes shining in the half-light
+swayed back and forth in the narrow stalls, while their owners waited
+patiently for the feed they knew was coming.
+
+Jim, still sleepy, appeared presently; together the two went through
+the routine of chores, as they had done hundreds of times before. They
+worked mechanically, being still stiff and sore from the previous
+day's work, but swiftly, in the way mechanical work is sometimes
+done.
+
+Side by side, with singing milk pails between their knees, Jim stopped
+long enough to ask, "Made up your mind yet what you'll do, Guy?"
+
+The older brother answered without a break in the swish of milk
+through foam:
+
+"No, I haven't, Jim. If it wasn't for you and father and mother and--"
+he diverted with a redoubled clatter of milk on tin.
+
+"Be honest, Guy," was the reproachful caution.
+
+"--and Faith," added the older brother simply.
+
+The reddish glow in the east had spread and lit up the earth; so they
+put out the lantern, and, bending under the weight of steaming milk
+pails, walked single file toward the house and breakfast. Far in the
+distance a thin jet of steam spreading broadly in the frosty air
+marked the location of a threshing crew. The whistle,--thin,
+brassy,--spoke the one word "Come!" over miles of level prairie, to
+the scattered neighbors.
+
+Four people, rough, homely, sat down to a breakfast of coarse, plain
+cookery, and talked of common, homely things.
+
+"I see you didn't get so much milk as usual this morning, Jim," said
+the mother.
+
+"No, the line-backed heifer kicked over a half-pailful."
+
+"Goin' to finish shuckin' that west field this week, Guy?" asked the
+father.
+
+"Yes. We'll cross over before night."
+
+Nothing more was said. They were all hungry, and in the following
+silence the jangle of iron on coarse queensware, and the aspiration of
+beverages steaming still though undergoing the cooling medium of
+saucers, filled in all lulls that might otherwise have seemed to
+require conversation.
+
+Not until the boys got up to go to work did the family bond draw tight
+enough to show. Then the mother, tenderly as a surgeon, dressed the
+chafed spots on her boys' hands, saying low in words that spoke
+volumes, "I'll be so glad when the corn's all husked"; and the father
+followed them out onto the little porch to add, "Better quit early
+so's to hear the speakin' to-night, Guy."
+
+"How are you feeling to-day, father?" asked the young man, in a tone
+he attempted to make honestly interested, but which an infinite
+number of repetitions had made almost automatic.
+
+The father hesitated, and a look of sadness crept over his weathered
+face.
+
+"No better, Guy." He laid his hand on the young man's shoulder,
+looking down into the frank blue eyes with a tenderness that made his
+rough features almost beautiful.
+
+"It all depends upon you now, Guy, my boy." Unconsciously his voice
+took on the incomparable pathos of age displaced. "I'm out of the
+race," he finished simply.
+
+The heavy, weather-painted lumber wagon turned at the farm-yard, and
+rumbled down a country road, bound hard as asphalt in the fall frosts.
+The air cut sharply at the ears of the man in the box, as he held the
+lines in either hand alternately, swinging its mate with vigor. The
+sun was just peeping from the broad lap of the prairie, casting the
+beauty of color and of sparkle over all things. Ahead of the wagon
+coveys of quail broke and ran swiftly in the track until tired, when,
+with a side movement the tall grass by the border absorbed them.
+Flocks of prairie-chickens, frightened by the clatter, sprang winging
+from the roadside, and together sailed away on spread wings. The man
+in the wagon looked about him and forgetting all else in the
+quick-flowing blood of morning, smiled gladly.
+
+He stopped at the edge of the field, tying the reins loosely and
+building up the sideboards, gradually shorter, each above the other,
+pyramid-like, until they reached higher than his own head as he stood
+in the wagon-box. Stiff from the jolting and inactivity of the drive,
+he jumped out upon the uneven surface of the corn-field.
+
+Slowly at first, as sore fingers rebelled against the roughness of
+husks, he began work, touching the frosty ears gingerly; then as
+he warmed to the task, stopping at nothing. The frost, dense,
+all-covering, shook from the stalks as he moved, coloring the rusty
+blue of his overalls white, and melting ice-cold, wet him through
+to the skin on arms and shoulders and knees. Swiftly, two motions to
+the ear, he kept up a tapping like the regular blows of a hammer, as
+the ears struck the sideboard. Fifteen taps to the minute, you would
+have counted; a goodly man's record.
+
+This morning, though, Landers' mind was not upon his work. The vague,
+uncertain restlessness that marked the birth of a desire for broader
+things than he had known heretofore, was taking form in his brain. He
+himself could not have told what he wanted, what he planned; he simply
+felt a distaste for the things of Now; an unrest that prevented his
+sitting quiet; that took him up very early at morning; that made him
+husk more bushels of corn, and toss more bundles of grain into the
+self-feed of a threshing machine than any other man he knew; that kept
+him awake thinking at night until the discordant snores of the family
+sent him to bed, with the covers over his ears in self-defence.
+
+A vague wonder that such thoughts were in his mind at all was upon
+him. He was the son of his parents; his life so far had been their
+life: why should he not be as content as they?
+
+He could not answer, yet the distaste grew. Irresistibly he had
+acquired a habit of seeing unpleasant things: the meanness and the
+smallness of his surroundings; the uncouth furnishings of his home;
+the lack of grace in his parents and acquaintances; the trifling
+incidents that required so many hours of discussion; and in all things
+the absence of that sense of humor and appreciation of the lighter
+side of life which, from reading, he had learned to recognize.
+
+Try as he might, he could not recollect even the faint flash of a poor
+pun coming originally from his parents. Was he to be as they? A
+feeling of intense repugnance swept over him at the thought--a
+repugnance unaccountable, and of which he felt much ashamed.
+
+Self-suspicion followed. Was it well for him to read the books and
+think the thoughts of the past year? He could not escape except by
+brutally tearing himself by the roots from his parents' lives. It was
+all so hopelessly selfish on his part!
+
+"True," answered the hot spirit of resentment, "but is it not right
+that you should think first of Self? Is not individual advancement the
+first law of Nature? If there is something better, why should you not
+secure it?"
+
+The innate spirit of independence, the intense passion of pride and
+equality inborn with the true country-bred, surged warmly through his
+body until he fairly tingled.
+
+Why should others have things, think thoughts, enjoy pleasures of
+which he was to remain in ignorance? The mood of rebellion was upon
+him and he swore he would be as they. Of the best the world contained,
+he, Guy Landers, would partake.
+
+With the decision came an exultant consciousness of the graceful play
+of his own muscles in rapid action. The self-confidence of the
+splendid animal was his. He would work and advance himself. The world
+must move, and he would help. He would do things, great things, of
+which he and the world would be proud.
+
+Unconsciously he worked faster and faster as thought travelled. The
+other wagons dropped behind, the tapping of corn ears on their
+sideboards making faint music in the clear air.
+
+The sun rose swiftly, warming and drying the earth. Instead of frost
+the dust of weathered husks fell thickly over him. Overflowing with
+life and physical power, he worked through the long rows to the end,
+then mounted the wagon and looked around. Silently he noted the gain
+over the other workers, and a smile lit up the sturdy lines of his
+face.
+
+Evening was approaching. The rough lumber wagon, heavily loaded from
+the afternoon's work, groaned loudly over the uneven ground. Instead
+of the east, the west was now red, glorious. High up in the sky,
+surrounding the glow, a part of it as well, narrow luminous sun-dogs
+presaged uncertain weather to follow.
+
+Guy Landers mounted the wagon wearily, and looked ahead. The end of
+the two loaded corn-rows which he was robbing was in sight, and he
+returned doggedly to his task. The ardor of the morning had succumbed
+to the steady grind of physical toil, and he worked with the impassive
+perseverance of a machine.
+
+Night and the stillness thereof settled fast. The world darkened so
+swiftly that the change could almost be distinguished. The rows ahead
+grew shadowy, and in their midst, by contrast, the corn-ears stood out
+white and distinct. The whole world seemed to draw more closely
+together. The low vibrant hum that marked the location of the distant
+threshing crew, sounded now almost as near as the voice of a friend. A
+flock of prairie-chickens flew low overhead, their flatly spread wings
+cutting the air with a sound like whips. They settled nearby, and out
+of the twilight came anon the confused murmur of their voices.
+
+Landers stopped the impatient horses at the end of the field, and
+shook level the irregular, golden heap in the wagon-box. Slowly he
+drew on coat and top-coat, and mounted the full load, sitting sideways
+with legs hanging over the bulging wagon-box. It was dark now, but he
+was not alone. Other wagons were groaning homeward as well. Suddenly,
+thin and brassy, out of the distance came the sound of a steam
+whistle; and when it was again silent the hum of the thresher had
+ceased. From a field by the roadside, a solitary prairie-rooster gave
+once, twice, its lone, restless call.
+
+The man stretched back full length on the corn bed and looked up where
+the stars sparkled clear and bright. It all appealed to him, and a
+moisture formed in his eyes. A new side to the problem of the morning
+came to him. These sounds--he realized now how he loved them. Verily
+they were a part of his life. Mid them he had been bred; of them as of
+food he had grown. That whistle, thin and unmusical; that elusive,
+indescribable call of prairie male; all these homely sounds that meant
+so much to him--could he leave them?
+
+The moisture in his eyes deepened and a tightness gripped his throat.
+Slowly two great tears fought their way down through the dust on his
+face, and dropped lingeringly, one after the other amid the
+corn-ears.
+
+
+II
+
+
+The little, low, weather-white school-house stood glaring solitarily
+in the bright starlight, from out its setting of brown, hard-trodden
+prairie. Within, the assembled farmers were packed tight and regular
+in the seats and aisles, like kernels on an ear of corn. In the front
+of the room a little space had been shelled bare for the speaker, and
+the displaced human kernels thereto incident were scattered crouching
+in the narrow hall and anteroom. From without, groups of men denied
+admittance, thrust hairy faces in at the open windows. A row of dusty,
+grease-covered lamps flanked by composition metal reflectors,
+concentrated light upon the shelled spot, leaving the remainder of the
+room in variant shadow. The low murmur of suppressed conversation,
+accompanied by the unconscious shuffling of restless feet, sounded
+through the place. Becoming constantly more noticeable, an unpleasant,
+penetrating odor, of the unclean human animal filled the room.
+
+Guy Landers sat on a crowded back seat, where, leaning one elbow on
+his knee, he shaded his eyes with his hand. On his right a big, sweaty
+farmer was smoking a stale pipe. The smell of the cheap, vile tobacco,
+bad as it was, became a welcome substitute for the odor of the man
+himself.
+
+At his left were two boys of his own age, splendid, both of them, with
+the overflowing vitality that makes all young animals splendid. They
+were talking--of women. They spoke low, watching sheepishly whether
+any one was listening, and snickering suppressedly together.
+
+The young man's head dropped in his hands. It all depressed him like a
+weight. From the depths of his soul he despised them for their
+vulgarity, and hated himself for so doing, for he was of their life
+and work akin. He shut his eyes, suffering blindly.
+
+Consciousness returned at the sound of a strangely soft voice, and he
+looked up a little bewildered. A swarm of night-bugs encircled each of
+the greasy lamps, blindly beating out their lives against the hot
+chimney; but save this and the soft voice there was no other sound.
+The man at the right held his pipe in his hand; to the left the boys
+had ceased whispering; one and all were listening to the speaker with
+the stolid, expressionless gaze of interested animals.
+
+Guy Landers could not have told why he had come that night. Perhaps it
+was in response to that gregarious instinct which prompts us all at
+times to mingle with a crowd; certainly he had not expected to be
+interested. Thus it was with almost a feeling of rebellious curiosity
+that he caught himself listening intently.
+
+The speech was political, the speaker a college man. What he said was
+immaterial--not a listener but had heard the same arguments a dozen
+times before; it was the man himself that held them.
+
+What the farmers in that dingy little room saw was a smooth-faced
+young man, with blue eyes set far apart and light hair that exposed
+the temples far back; they heard a soft voice which made them forget
+for a time that they were very tired--forget all else but that he was
+speaking.
+
+Landers saw further: not a single man, but a type; the concrete
+illustration of a vague ideal he had long known. He realized as
+the others did not, that the speaker was merely practising on
+them--training, as the man himself would have said. When Landers
+was critically conscious, he was not deceived; yet, with this
+knowledge, at times he forgot and moved along with the speaker,
+unconsciously.
+
+It was all deliriously intoxicating to the farmer--this first
+understanding glimpse of things he had before merely dreamed
+of--and he waited exultantly for those brief moments when he felt,
+sympathetically with the speaker, the keen joy of mastery in
+perfect art; that joy beside which no other of earth can compare, the
+compelling magnetism which carries another's mind irresistibly
+along with one's own.
+
+The speaker finished and sat down wearily, and almost simultaneously
+the hairy faces left the windows. The shuffling of feet and the murmur
+of rough voices once more sounded through the room; again the odor of
+vile tobacco filled the air. Several of the older men gathered around
+the speaker, in turn holding his hand in a relentless grip while they
+struggled bravely for words to express the broadest of compliments.
+Young boys stood wide-eyed under their fathers' arms and looked at the
+college man steadily, like young calves.
+
+The reaction was on the slender young speaker, and though the
+experience was new, he shook hands wearily. In spite of himself a
+shade of disgust crept into his face. He was not bidding for these
+farmers' votes, and the big sweaty men were foully odorous. He worked
+his way steadily out into the open air.
+
+Landers, in response to a motive he made no attempt to explain even to
+himself, walked over and touched the chairman on the shoulder.
+
+"'Evening, Ross," he greeted perfunctorily. "Pretty good talk, wasn't
+it?" Without waiting for a reply he went on, "Suppose you're not
+hankering for a drive back to town to-night? I'll see that"--a swift
+nod toward the departing group--"he gets back home, if you wish."
+
+Ross looked up in pleased surprise. He was tired and sleepy and only
+too glad to accept the suggestion.
+
+"Thank you, Guy," he answered gratefully. "I'll do as much for you
+some time."
+
+Landers waited silently until the last eulogist had lingeringly
+departed, leaving the bewildered speaker gazing about for the
+chairman.
+
+"I'm to take you to town," said Landers, simply, as he led the way
+toward his wagon. He then added, as an afterthought: "If you're tired
+and prefer, you may stay with me to-night."
+
+The collegian, looking up to decline, met the countryman's eye, and
+for the first time the two studied each other steadily.
+
+"I will stay with you, if you please," he said in sudden change of
+mind.
+
+They drove out, slowly, into the frosty night, the sound of the other
+wagons rattling over frozen roads coming pleasantly to their ears.
+Overhead countless stars lit up the earth and sky, almost as brightly
+as moonlight.
+
+"I suppose you are husking corn these days," initiated the collegian,
+perfunctorily.
+
+"Yes," was the short answer.
+
+They rode on again in silence, the other wagons rumbling slowly away
+into the distance until their sound came only as a low humming from
+the frozen earth.
+
+"Prices pretty good this season?" questioned the college man,
+tentatively.
+
+Landers flashed around on him almost fiercely.
+
+"In Heaven's name, man," he protested, "give me credit for a thought
+outside my work--" He paused, and his voice became natural: "--a
+thought such as other people have," he finished, sadly.
+
+The two men looked steadily at each other, a multitude of conflicting
+emotions on the face of the collegian. He could not have been more
+surprised had a clothing dummy raised its voice and spoken. Landers
+turned away and looked out over the frosty prairie.
+
+"I beg your pardon,"--wearily. "You're not to blame for thinking--as
+everybody else thinks." His companion started to interrupt but Landers
+raised his hand in silencing motion. "Let us be honest--with
+ourselves, at least," he anticipated.
+
+"I know we of the farm are dull, and crude, and vulgar, and our
+thoughts are of common things. You of the other world patronize us;
+you practise on us as you did to-night, thinking we do not know. But
+some of us do, and it hurts."
+
+The other man impulsively held out his hand; a swift apology came to
+his lips, but as he looked into the face before him, he felt it would
+be better left unsaid. Instead, he voiced the question that came
+uppermost to his mind.
+
+"Why don't you leave--this--and go to school?" he asked abruptly. "You
+have an equal chance with the rest. We're each what we make
+ourselves."
+
+Landers broke in on him quickly.
+
+"We all like to talk of equality, but in reality we know there is
+none. You say 'leave' without the slightest knowledge of what in my
+case it means." He gave the collegian a quick look.
+
+"I'm talking as though I'd known you all my life." A question was in
+his voice.
+
+"I'm listening," said the man, simply.
+
+"I'll tell you what it means, then. It means that I divorce myself
+from everything of Now; that I unlive my past life; that I leave my
+companionship with dumb things--horses and cattle and birds--and I
+love them, for they are natural. This seems childish to you; but live
+with them for years, more than with human beings, and you will
+understand.
+
+"More than all else it means that I must become as a stranger to my
+family; and they depend upon me. My friends of now would not be my
+friends when I returned; they would be as I am to you now--a thing to
+be patronized."
+
+He hesitated, and then went recklessly on:
+
+"I've told you so much, I may as well tell you everything. On the next
+farm to ours there's a little, brown-eyed girl--Faith's her
+name--and--and--" His new-found flow of words failed, and he ended in
+unconscious apostrophe:
+
+"To think of growing out of her life, and strange to my father and
+mother--it's all so selfish, so hideously selfish!"
+
+"I think I understand," said the soft voice at his side.
+
+They drove on without a word, the frost-bound road ringing under the
+horses' feet, the stars above smiling sympathetic indulgence at this
+last repetition of the old, old tale of man.
+
+The gentle voice of the collegian broke the silence.
+
+"You say it would be selfish to leave. Is it not right, though, and of
+necessity, that we think first of self?" He paused, then boldly
+sounded the keynote of the universe.
+
+"Is not selfishness the first law of nature?" he asked.
+
+Landers opened his lips to answer, but closed them without a word.
+
+
+III
+
+
+Brown, magnetic Fall, with her overflow of animal activity, shaded
+gradually into the white of lethic Winter; then in slow dissolution
+relinquished supremacy to the tans and mottled greens of Springtime.
+Unsatisfied as man, the mighty cycle of the seasons' evolution moved
+on until the ripe yellow of harvest and of corn-field wrote "Autumn"
+on the broad page of the prairies.
+
+Of an evening in early September, Guy Landers turned out from the
+uncut grass of the farm-yard into the yellow, beaten dust of the
+country road. He walked slowly, for it was his last night on the farm,
+and it would be long ere he passed that way again. This was the road
+that led to the district school-house, and with him every inch had
+been familiar from childhood. As a boy he had run barefoot in its
+yellow dust, and paddled joyously in the soft mud of its summer
+showers. The rows of tall cottonwoods that bordered it on either side
+he had helped plant, watching them grow year by year, as he himself
+had grown, until now the whispering of prairie night winds in their
+loosely hung leaves spoke a language as familiar as his native
+tongue.
+
+He walked down the road for a half-mile, and turned in between still
+other tall cottonwoods at another weather-stained, square farm-house,
+scarcely distinguishable from his own.
+
+"'Evening, Mr. Baker." He nodded to the round-shouldered man who sat
+smoking on the doorstep.
+
+The farmer moved to one side, making generous room beside him.
+
+"'Evening, Guy," he echoed. "Won't y' set down?"
+
+"Not to-night, Mr. Baker. I came over to see Faith." He hesitated,
+then added as an afterthought: "I go away to-morrow."
+
+The man on the steps smoked silently for a minute, the glow from the
+corn-cob bowl emphasizing the gathering twilight. Slowly he took the
+pipe from his mouth, and, standing up, seized the young man's hand in
+the grip of a vise.
+
+"I heerd y' were goin', Guy." He looked down through the steadiest of
+mild blue eyes. "Good-bye, my boy." An uncertain catch came into his
+voice, and he shook the hand harder than before. "We'll all miss ye."
+
+He dropped his arm, and sat down on the step, impassively resuming his
+pipe. Without raising his eyes, he nodded toward the back yard.
+
+"Faith's back there with her posies," he said.
+
+The young man hesitated, swallowing fiercely at the lump in his
+throat.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Baker," he faltered at length.
+
+He walked slowly around the corner of the house, stopping a moment to
+pat the friendly collie that wagged his tail, welcomingly, in the
+path. A large mixed orchard-garden, surrounded by a row of sturdy soft
+maples, opened up before him; and, coming up its side path, with the
+most cautious of gingerly treads, was the big hired man, bearing a
+huge striped watermelon. He nodded in passing, and grinned with a
+meaning hospitality on the visitor.
+
+At one corner of the garden an oblong mound of earth, bordered with
+bright stones and river-clam shells, marked the "posy" bed. Within
+its boundaries a collection of overgrown house plants, belated pinks,
+and seeding sweet-peas, fought for life with the early fall frosts.
+Landers looked steadily down at the sorry little garden. Like
+everything else he had seen that night, it told its pathetic tale of
+things that had been but would be no more.
+
+As he looked, a multitude of homely blossoms that he had plucked in
+the past flowered anew in his memory. The mild faces of violets and
+pansies, the gaudy blotches of phlox, stood out like nature. He could
+almost smell the heavy odor of mignonette. A mist gathered over his
+eyes, and again, as at the good-bye of a moment ago, the lump rose
+chokingly in his throat.
+
+He turned away from the tiny, damaged bed to send a searching look
+around the garden.
+
+"Faith!" he called gently.
+
+"Faith!"--louder.
+
+A soft little sound caught his ear from the grass-plot at the border.
+He started swiftly toward it, but stopped half-way, for the sound was
+repeated, and this time came distinctly--a bitter, half-choked sob.
+With a motion of weariness and of pain the man passed his hand over
+his eyes, then walked on firmly, his footsteps muffled in the short
+grass.
+
+A dainty little figure in the plainest of calico, lay curled up on the
+sod beneath the big maple. Her face was buried in both arms; her whole
+body trembled, as she struggled hard against the great sobs.
+
+"Faith--" interrupted the man softly, "Faith--"
+
+The sobs became more violent.
+
+"Go away, Guy," pleaded a tearful, muffled voice between the breaks.
+"Please go away, please--"
+
+The man knelt swiftly down on the grass; irresistibly his arm spread
+over the dainty, trembling, little woman. Then as suddenly he drew
+back with a face white as moonlight, and a sound in his throat that
+was almost a groan.
+
+He knelt a moment so, then touched her shoulder gently--as he would
+have touched earth's most sacred thing.
+
+"Faith--" he repeated uncertainly.
+
+The girl buried her head more deeply.
+
+"I won't, I tell you," she cried chokingly, "I won't--" she could say
+no more. There were no words in her meagre vocabulary to voice her
+bitterness of heart.
+
+The man got to his feet almost roughly, face and hands set like a
+lock. He stood a second looking passionately down at her.
+
+"Good-bye, Faith," he said, and his trembling voice was the gentlest
+of caresses. He started swiftly away down the path.
+
+The girl listened a moment to the retreating steps, then raised a
+tear-stained face above her arms.
+
+"Guy!" she called chokingly, "Guy!"
+
+The man quickened his steps at the sound, but did not turn.
+
+The girl sprang to her feet.
+
+"Oh, Guy! Guy!" pleadingly, desperately. "Guy!"
+
+The man had reached the open. With a motion that was almost insane, he
+clapped his hands over his ears, and ran blindly down the dusty path
+until he was tired, then dropped hopelessly by the roadside.
+
+Overhead the big cottonwoods whispered softly in the starlight, and a
+solitary catbird sang its lonely night song.
+
+The man flung his arms around the big, friendly tree, and sobbed
+wildly--as the girl had sobbed.
+
+"Oh, Faith!" he groaned.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+A month had passed by, bringing to Guy Landers a new Heaven and a new
+earth. Already the prosy old university town had begun to assume an
+atmosphere of home. The well-clipped campus, with its huge oaks and
+its limestone walks, had taken on the familiar possessive plural "our
+campus," and the solitary red squirrel which sported fearlessly in its
+midst had likewise become "our squirrel." The imposing, dignified
+college buildings had ceased to elicit open-mouthed observance, and
+among the student-body surnames had yielded precedence to Christian
+names--oftener, though, to some outlandish sobriquet which satirized
+an idiosyncrasy of temperament or outward aspect.
+
+Meantime the farmer had learned many things. Prominent among these was
+a conception of the preponderant amount he had yet to learn. Another
+matter of illumination involved the relation of clothes to man. He had
+been reared in the delusion that the person who gave thought to that
+which he wore, must necessarily think of nothing else. Very confusing,
+therefore, was the experience of having representatives of this same
+class immeasurably outdistance him in the quiz room.
+
+Again, on the athletic field he saw men of much lighter weight excel
+him in a way that made his face burn with a redness not of physical
+exertion. It was a wholesome lesson that he was learning--that there
+are everywhere scores of others, equally or better fitted by Nature
+for the struggle of life than oneself, and who can only be surpassed
+by the indomitable application and determination that wins all
+things.
+
+Landers' nature though was that of the born combatant. The class that
+laughed openly at his first tremblingly bashful, and ludicrously inapt
+answer at quiz, was indelibly photographed upon his memory.
+
+"Before this session is complete--" he challenged softly to himself,
+and glared at those members nearest him in a way that made them
+suddenly forget the humor of the situation.
+
+But youth is ever tractable, and even this short time had accomplished
+much. Already the warm, contagious, college comradeship possessed him.
+Violent attacks of homesickness that made gray the brightest fall
+days, like the callous spots on his palms, were becoming more rare.
+The old existence was already a dream, as yet a little sad, but none
+the less a thing without a substance. The new life was a warm,
+magnetic reality; the future glowed bright with limitless promise.
+
+"The first day of the second month," remarked Landers, meeting a
+fellow-classman on the way to college hall one morning.
+
+"Yes, an auspicious time to quit--this," completed the student with a
+suggestive shuffle of his feet. "We've furnished our share of
+amusement."
+
+Landers looked up questioningly.
+
+"Is that from the class president?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," answered the other, "hadn't you heard? No more dancing, 'his
+nibs' says."
+
+They had reached the entrance to the big college building, and at that
+moment a great roar of voices sounded from out the second-floor
+windows. Simultaneously the two freshmen quickened their pace.
+
+"The fun's on," commented Landers' informant excitedly, as together
+they broke for the lecture-room, two stairs at the jump.
+
+The large department amphitheatre opened up like a fan--the handle in
+the centre of the building on the entrance floor, the spread edge,
+nearly a complete half-circle, marked by the boundary walls of the
+building, a full story higher. The intervening space, at an
+inclination of thirty odd degrees, was a field of seats, cut into
+three equal parts by two aisles that ran from the entrance,
+divergently upward. The small space at the entrance--popularly dubbed
+"the pit"--was professordom's own particular region. From this point,
+by an unwritten law, the classes ranged themselves according to the
+length of their university life; the seniors at the extreme apex of
+the angle, the other classes respectively above, leaving the freshmen
+far beyond in space.
+
+As guardians of the two narrow aisles, the seniors dealt lightly with
+juniors and "sophs," but demanded insatiable toll of every freshman
+before he was allowed to ascend.
+
+That a first-year man must dance was irrevocable. It had the authority
+of precedent in uncounted graduate classes. To be sure, it was neither
+required nor expected that all applicants be masters of the art; but,
+agitate his feet in some manner, every able-bodied male member must,
+or remain forever a freshman.
+
+When Landers and his companion arrived at the top of the stairs they
+found the hall packed close with fellow-classmates. The lower rows of
+seats were already filled with triumphant seniors, waiting for the
+throng that crowded pit and lobby to come within their reach. With
+regular tapping of feet and clapping of hands in unison, the class as
+one man beat the steady time of one who marches.
+
+"Dance, freshies!" they repeated monotonously. "Dance!"
+
+"Clear the pit for a rush," yelled the president of the besieging
+freshmen, elbowing his way back into the mass.
+
+A lull fell upon the room, as both sides gathered themselves
+together.
+
+"Now--all at once!" yelled the president, and pandemonium broke
+loose.
+
+"Rush 'em! Shove, behind there!" shrieked the struggling freshmen at
+the front.
+
+"Dance, freshies! Dance!" challenged the seniors, as they locked arms
+across the narrow aisle.
+
+"Hold 'em, fellows! Hold 'em!" encouraged the men of the upper seats,
+bracing themselves against the broad backs below.
+
+The classes met like water against a wall. To go up was impossible;
+advantage of gravity and of position was all with the seniors. For an
+instant, at the centre, there were frantic yelling and pulling of
+loose wearing apparel; then, packed like cotton in a bale, they could
+only scream for mercy.
+
+"Loosen up, back there! Back!" they panted, squirming impotently as
+they gasped for breath.
+
+Slowly the reaction came amid the triumphant, "Dance, freshies!" of
+the conquering hosts.
+
+The jam loosened; the seniors' opportunity came. Like a big machine,
+the occupants of the front row leaned forward, and seized upon a
+circle of unsuspecting, retreating freshmen, among the number the
+class president.
+
+"Pass 'em up! Pass 'em up!" insisted the men above, reaching out eager
+hands to aid; and with an irresistibility that seemed miraculous, the
+squirming, kicking, struggling freshmen found themselves rolling
+upward--head foremost, feet foremost, position unclassified--over the
+heads of the upper classmen; bumping against seats, and scattering the
+contents of their pockets loosely along the way.
+
+"Up with them," repeated the denizens of the front row as they reached
+forward for a fresh supply.
+
+But there was no more material available; the besieging party had
+retreated. On the top row the dishevelled president was confusedly
+pulling himself together, and grinning sheepishly. The rebellion was
+over.
+
+"Dance, freshies," resumed the seniors mockingly; and once more the
+regular tap of feet and clapping of hands beat slow march-time.
+
+One by one the freshmen came forward, and, shuffling a few steps to
+the encouraging "well done" of the seniors, mounted the steps between
+the rows of laughing upper classmen.
+
+It happened that Landers came last. He wore heavy shoes and walked
+with an undeniable clump.
+
+"He's Dutch, make him clog," called a man from an upper row.
+
+The class caught the cry. "Clog! Clog!" they commanded.
+
+A big fellow next the aisle made an addition. "Clog there, hayseed,"
+he grumbled.
+
+Landers stopped as though the words were a blow. That one word
+"hayseed" with all that it meant to him--to be thrown at him now,
+tauntingly, before the whole class! His face grew white beneath the
+remaining coat of tan, and he stepped up to the big senior with a
+swiftness of which no one would have suspected him capable.
+
+"Take that back!" he blazed into the man's face.
+
+The senior hesitated; the room grew breathlessly quiet.
+
+"Take it back, I say!"
+
+The big fellow tried to laugh, but his voice only grated.
+
+"Damned if I will--hayseed," he retorted with a meaning pause and
+accent.
+
+Before the words were out of his mouth Landers had the man by the
+collar, and they were fighting like cats.
+
+For a time things in that pit were very confused and very noisy. Both
+students were big and both were furiously angry. By rule they would
+have been very evenly matched, but in a rough-and-tumble scrimmage
+there was no comparison. The classes made silent and neutral
+spectators, as Landers swung the man around in the narrow pit like a
+whirlwind, and finally pushed him back into his seat.
+
+"Now will you take it back!" he roared breathlessly, vigorously
+shaking his victim.
+
+The hot lust of battle was upon the farmer, and he forgot that several
+hundred students were watching his every motion.
+
+"Take it back," he repeated, "or I'll--" and he lifted the man half
+out of the seat.
+
+The senior seized both arms of the chair, and looked up in a dazed
+sort of way.
+
+"I--" he began weakly.
+
+"Louder--" interrupted Landers.
+
+"I--beg your pardon," said the reluctant, trembling voice.
+
+That instant the amphitheatre went wild. "Bravo!" yelled a hundred
+voices over the clamor of cheering hands.
+
+"Three cheers for the freshman!" shrilled a voice over the tumult; and
+the "rah, rah, rah" that followed made the skylight rattle.
+
+Landers stepped back and looked up bewildered; then a realization of
+the thing came to him and his face burned as no sun could make it
+burn, and his knees grew weak. He gladly would have given all his
+present earthly belongings, and all in prospect for the immediate
+future for a kindly earth to open suddenly and swallow him.
+Perspiration stood out on his face as he went slowly up the stairs, at
+every step a row of friendly hands grasping him in congratulation.
+
+Slowly the room became quiet. The whole confusion had not taken up
+even the time of grace at the beginning of the hour; and a great burst
+of applause greeted the mild old dean as he came absently in, as was
+his wont, at the tap of the ten-minute bell. He looked up innocently
+at the unusual greeting, and the cheer was repeated with interest. As
+first in authority he was supposed to report all such inter-class
+offences; but in effect he invariably happened to be conveniently
+absent at such times--the times of the freshman rebellion. He began
+lecturing now without a word of comment, and on the instant the
+peaceful scratching of fountain pens on notebooks replaced the clamors
+of war.
+
+The lecture was about half over when there was a tap on the entrance
+door; and the white-haired dean, answering, stepped out into the hall.
+In a second he returned carrying a thin, yellow envelope.
+
+"A message for--," he studied the writing with near-sighted eyes,
+"--for Guy Landers," he announced slowly.
+
+The message went up the incline, hand over hand toward the top row,
+and the boy who waited felt the room growing gradually close and dark.
+To him a telegram could mean but one thing.
+
+The class sat watching silently until they saw him take the paper from
+his neighbor; then in kindness they turned away at the look on his
+face. In the pit below the mild old dean began talking absently.
+
+Landers tried to open the envelope, but his nervous hands rebelled. He
+laid the broad side firmly against his knee and tore open the end
+raggedly, drawing out the inclosed sheet with a trembling rustle that
+could be heard all over the room.
+
+The open page was before him; but the letters only danced before his
+eyes. He spread the paper as before, flat upon his knee, ere he could
+read.
+
+The one short line, the line of which every word was as he expected,
+stood clear before him. He felt now a vague sort of wonder that the
+brief, picked sentences should have affected him as they had. He had
+already known what they told for so long--ever since his name was
+spoken at the door--ages ago. He looked hesitatingly around the room.
+Several students were scrutinizing him curiously, as though expecting
+something. Oh, yes--that recalled him. He must go--home. He hated to
+interrupt the lecture, but he must. He got up unsteadily, and started
+down the stair, groping his way uncertainly, as a man walks in the
+dark.
+
+The kind old dean waited in silence until Landers had passed
+hesitatingly through the door; then followed him out into the hall. A
+moment, and he returned, standing abstractedly by the lecture table.
+He picked up his scattered notes absently, shaking the ends even with
+a painstaking hand; then as carefully scattered them as before. He
+looked up at the silent, waiting class, and those who were near saw
+the tears sparkling in the mild old eyes.
+
+"Landers' father is dead," came the simple, hushed announcement.
+
+
+V
+
+
+The bright afternoon sun of late October shone slantingly on the train
+of weathered wagons that stretched out like an uncoiling spring from
+the group collected in front of the little farm-house. From near and
+afar the neighbors had gathered; and now, falling slowly into line,
+they formed a chain a full quarter-mile in length.
+
+Guy Landers was glad that at last it was over and they were out in the
+sunshine once more. He turned into the carefully reserved place at the
+head of the procession with almost a sense of relief. He was tired,
+fiercely tired, of the well-meant but insistent pity which dogged him
+with a tenacity that drove him desperate. They would not even allow
+him to think.
+
+He rode alone on the front seat of the open wagon. Behind him, his
+mother and Jim sat stiffly, hand in hand. They gazed dully at the
+black thing ahead, and sobbed softly, now singly, now together.
+Both--himself as well--were dressed in complete black; old musty
+black, gotten out of the dark, hurriedly, and with the close smell of
+the closet still upon it. Even the horses conformed to the sober
+shade. They had been supplied by a neighbor on account of their
+sombre color.
+
+A heavy black tassel swung back and forth with the motion of the
+uneven road just ahead of the horses' heads, and Landers sat watching
+it idly. He even caught himself counting the vibrations, as though it
+were a pendulum, dividing the beats into minutes. Very slow time it
+was; but somehow it did not surprise him. It all conformed so
+perfectly with the brown, quiet prairie, and the sun shining, slanting
+and sleepy.
+
+The swinging tassel grew indistinct, and the _patter_, _patter_,
+_patter_ of the teams behind came as from a distance. He closed his
+eyes, and the events of the past two days drifted through his mind.
+Already they seemed indistinct, as a dream. He wondered dully that
+they could be true and yet seem so foreign to his life, now. He even
+began to doubt their verity, and opened his eyes slowly, half
+expecting to see the cool, green campus, and the big college
+buildings. The slanting sunlight met him full in the face, and the
+black pendant swung monotonously, from side to side, as before. He
+wearily closed his eyes again.
+
+Only two days since he had heard the taunting "Dance, freshy!" of the
+seniors, and felt the mighty rush of the freshman hosts; since the
+"rah, rah, rah, Landers!" had shook the old amphitheatre and the
+dozens of welcoming hands had greeted him; and then--the darkness--the
+hesitating leave-taking of the building, and the lingering walk across
+the deserted campus toward his room--the walk he knew so well he would
+take no more. A brief time of waiting--a blank--and then the bitter,
+thumping ride across two States toward his home, when he could only
+think, and think, and try to adjust himself--and fail; and at last the
+end. And again, at the little station, when he felt the touch of his
+mother's hand, and heard her choking "Guy, my boy--" that spoke so
+much of love and of trust; when he heard his own voice answering
+cheerily, with a firmness which surprised him even then, speaking that
+which all through the long ride he had known he must speak--but could
+not: "It's all right, mother; don't worry; I'll not leave you
+again!"--it all came back to him now, and he lived it over again and
+again.
+
+The big, black tassel danced tantalizingly in front of him. Yes, he
+had said that he would never leave again. He dully repeated the words
+now to himself: "never again." It was so fitting; quite in accordance
+with the rest of the black pageant. His dream of life, his new-felt
+ambitions--all were dead, dead, like his father before him, where the
+black plume nodded.
+
+They passed up through the little town and the shop-keepers came out
+to look. Some were in their shirt sleeves; the butcher had his white
+apron tucked up around his belt. They gathered together in twos and
+groups, nodding toward the procession, their lips moving as in
+pantomime. One man walked out to the crossing, counting aloud as the
+teams went by. "One, two, three, four, five, six--" he intoned. To him
+it was all a thing to amuse, like a circus parade,--interesting in
+proportion to its length.
+
+Landers looked almost curiously at the stolid shopmen. It required no
+flush of inspiration to tell him that but a few years of this life
+were necessary to make him as impassive as they. He who had sworn to
+make the world move would be contentedly sitting on an empty goods
+box, diligently numbering a passing procession!
+
+The biting humor of the thought appealed to him. He smiled grimly to
+himself.
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Once more on an early evening, a man turned out from a weather-stained
+prairie farm-house, through the frosted grass, arriving presently at
+the dusty public road. As before, he walked slowly along between the
+tall cottonwoods; but not, as on a memorable former occasion, because
+it would be for the last time. He was tired, tired with that absolute
+abandon of youth that sees no hope in the future, and has no
+philosophy to support it. Only thirty odd days since he went that way
+before! That many years would not add more to his life in the future.
+
+Unconsciously he searched along the way for the landmarks he had
+watched with so much interest the past summer. He found the nest
+where the quail had reared their brood, empty now, and covered thick
+with the scattered dust of passing teams. Forgetful that he was weary
+he climbed well up the bole of a shaggy old friend, to peep in at the
+opening of a deserted woodpecker's home. He came to the big tree at
+whose roots, on that other night he remembered so well, he had thrown
+himself hopelessly. With a stolid sort of curiosity he looked down at
+the spot. Yes, there was the place. A few fallen leaves were scattered
+upon the earth where his body had pressed tightly against the
+tree-trunk, and there were the hollows where his clenched hands had
+found hold. A dull rebellion crept over him as he looked. It had been
+needless to torture him so!
+
+He came in sight of the familiar little farm-house and turned in
+slowly at the break between the trees. It was growing dark now, but
+the odor of tobacco was on the air, and looking closely, he could
+catch the gleam from a glowing pipe-bowl in the doorway. He passed his
+hand across his brow, almost doubting--it was all so like--before--
+
+A light step came tapping quickly down the pathway toward him. "Guy!"
+a voice called softly. "Guy, is that you?"
+
+The voice was quite near him now, and he stopped short, a big maple
+above him.
+
+"Yes, Faith."
+
+She came up close, peering into the shadow.
+
+"Guy--" she repeated, "Guy, where are you?"
+
+He reached out and clasped her hand; then again, and took both hands.
+Her breath came quickly. Slowly his arm slipped about her waist, she
+struggling a little against her own will; then her head fell forward
+on his breast, and he could feel her whole body tremble.
+
+The man looked out through the rifts in the half-naked trees; into the
+sky, clear and sparkling beyond; on his face an expression of sadness,
+of joy, of abandon--all blended indescribably.
+
+Two soft arms crept gently about his neck, and a mass of fluffy hair
+caressed his face.
+
+"Oh! Guy! Guy!" sobbed the girl, "it's wicked, I know, but I'm so
+glad--so glad--"
+
+
+
+
+THE DOMINANT IMPULSE
+
+
+I
+
+
+Calmar Bye was a writer. That is to say, writing was his vocation and
+his recreation as well.
+
+As yet, unfortunately, he had been unable to find publishers; but for
+that deficiency no reasonable person could hold him responsible. He
+had tried them all--and repeatedly. A certain expressman now smiled
+when he saw the long, slim figure approaching with a package under his
+arm, which from frequent reappearances had become easily recognizable;
+but as a person becomes accustomed to a physical deformity, Calmar Bye
+had ceased to notice banter.
+
+Of but one thing in his life he was positively certain; and that was
+if Nature had fashioned him for any purpose in particular, it was to
+do the very thing he was doing now. The reason for this certainty was
+that he could do nothing else with even moderate satisfaction. He had
+tried, frequently, to break away, and had even succeeded for a month
+at a time in an endeavor to avoid writing a word; but inevitably there
+came a relapse and a more desperate debauch in literature. Try as he
+might he could not avoid the temptation. An incident, a trifle out of
+the ordinary in his commonplace life, a sudden thrill at the reading
+of another man's story, a night of insomnia, and resolution was in
+tatters, and shortly thereafter Calmar Bye's pencil would be coursing
+with redoubled vigor over a sheet of virgin paper.
+
+To be sure, Calmar did other things besides write. Being a normal man
+with a normal appetite, he could not successfully evade the demands of
+animal existence, and when his finances became unbearably low, he
+would proceed to their improvement by whatever means came first to
+hand. Book-keeping, clerical work, stenography--anything was grist for
+his mill at such times, and for a period he would work without rest.
+No better assistant could be found anywhere--until he had satisfied
+his few creditors and established a small surplus of his own. Then,
+presto, change!--and on the surface reappeared Bye, the long, slender,
+blue-eyed, dreaming, dawdling, irresponsible writer.
+
+Being what he was, the tenor of Calmar's life was markedly uneven. At
+times the lust to write, the spirit of inspiration, as he would have
+explained to himself in the privacy of his own study, would come upon
+him strong, and for hours or days life would be a joyous thing, his
+fellow-men dear brothers of a happy family, the obvious unhappiness
+and injustice about him not reality, but mere comedy being enacted for
+his particular delectation.
+
+Then at last, his work finished, would come inevitable reaction. The
+product of his hand and brain, completed, seemed inadequate and
+commonplace. He would smile grimly as with dogged persistence he
+started this latest child of his fancy out along the trail so thickly
+bestrewn with the skeletons of elder offspring. In measure, as
+badinage had previously passed him harmlessly by, it now cut deeply.
+No one in the entire town thought him a more complete failure than he
+considered himself. Skies, from being sunny, grew suddenly sodden; not
+a tenement or alley but thrust obtrusively forward its tale of
+misery.
+
+"Think of me," he confided to his friend Bob Wilson one evening as
+during his transit through a particularly dismal slough of despond
+they in company were busily engaged in blazing the trail with empty
+bottles; "One such as I, a man of thirty and of good health, without a
+dollar or the prospect of a dollar, an income or the prospect of an
+income, a home or the prospect of a home, following a cold scent like
+the one I am now on!" He snapped his finger against the rim of his
+thin drinking glass until it rang merrily.
+
+"The idea, again, of a man such as I, untravelled, penniless,
+self-educated, thinking to compete with others who journey the world
+over to secure material, and who have spent a fortune in preparation
+for this particular work." He excitedly drained the contents of the
+glass.
+
+"It's preposterous, childlike!"--he brought the frail trifle down to the
+table with an emphasis which was all but its destruction--"imbecile!
+I tell you I'm going to quit.
+
+"Quit for good," he repeated at the expression on the other's face.
+
+Bob Wilson scrutinized his companion with a critical eye.
+
+"Waiter," he said, speaking over his shoulder, "waiter, kindly tax our
+credit further to the extent of a couple of Havanas."
+
+"Yes, sah," acknowledged the waiter.
+
+Silence fell; but Bob's observation of his friend continued.
+
+"So you are going to quit the fight?" he commented at last.
+
+"I am,"--decidedly.
+
+Wilson lit his cigar.
+
+"You have completed that latest--production on which you were engaged,
+I suppose?"
+
+The writer scratched a match.
+
+"This afternoon."
+
+"And sent it on?"
+
+A nod. "Yes, on to the furnace room."
+
+A smile which approached a grin formed over Bob's big face.
+
+"You have hope of its acceptance, I trust?"
+
+Calmar Bye blew a cloud of smoke far toward the ceiling, and the
+smile, a shade grim, was reflected.
+
+"More than hope," laconically. "I have certainty at last."
+
+Another pause followed and slowly the smile vanished from the faces of
+both.
+
+"Bob," and the long Calmar straightened in his chair, "I've been an
+ass. It's all apparent, too apparent, now. I've tried to compete with
+the entire world, and I'm too small. It's enough for me to work
+against local competition." He meditatively flicked the ash from his
+cigar with his little finger.
+
+"I realize that a lot of my friends--women friends particularly--will
+say they always knew I had no determination, wouldn't stay in the game
+until I won. They're all alike in this one particular, Bob; all
+sticklers for the big lower jaw.
+
+"But I don't care. I've been shooting into a covey of publishers for
+twelve years and never have touched a feather. Perseverance is a good
+quality, but there is such a thing as insanity." He stared
+unconsciously at the portieres of the booth.
+
+"Once and for all, I tell you I'm through," he repeated.
+
+"What are you going at?" queried Bob, sympathetically, a shade
+quizzically.
+
+The long Calmar reached into his pocket with deliberation.
+
+"Read that." He tossed a letter across the tiny table.
+
+Bob poised the epistle in his hand gingerly.
+
+"South Dakota," he commented, as he observed the postmark. "Humph, I
+can't make out the town."
+
+"It's not a town at all, only a postoffice. Immaterial anyway,"
+explained Calmar, irritably.
+
+The round-faced man unfolded the letter slowly and read aloud:--
+
+  "MY DEAR SIR:--
+
+  "Your request, coming from a stranger, is rather unusual; but if
+  you really mean business, I will say this: Provided you're
+  willing to take hold and stay right with me, I'll take you in
+  and at the end of a half-year pay $75.00 per month. You can then
+  put into the common fund whatever part of your savings you wish
+  and have a proportionate interest in the herd. Permit me to
+  observe, however, that you will find your surroundings somewhat
+  different from those amid which you are living at present, and I
+  should advise you to consider carefully before you make the
+  change.
+
+                                          "Very truly yours,
+                                               "E. J. DOUGLASS."
+
+Bob slowly folded the sheet, and tossed it back.
+
+"In what particular portion of that desert, if I may ask, does your
+new employer reside?" There was uncertainty in the speaker's voice,
+as of one who spoke of India or the islands of the Pacific.
+"Likewise--pardon my ignorance--is that herd he mentions--buffalo?"
+
+Calmar imperturbably returned the letter to his pocket.
+
+"I'm serious, Robert. Douglass is a cattle man west of the river."
+
+"The river!" apostrophized Bob. "The man juggles with mysteries. What
+river, pray?"
+
+"The Missouri, of course. Didn't you ever study geography?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," in humble apology. "Is that," vaguely, "what they
+call the Bad Lands?"
+
+Bye looked across at his friend, of a mind to be indignant; then his
+good-nature triumphed.
+
+"No, it's not so bad as that," with a feeble attempt at a pun. He
+paused to light a cigar, and absent-minded as usual, continued in
+digression.
+
+"I've dangled long enough, old man; too long. I'm going to do
+something now. I start to-morrow."
+
+Bob Wilson the skeptic, looked at his friend again critically.
+Resolutions of reconstruction he had heard before--and later watched
+their downfall; but this time somehow there was a new element
+introduced. Perhaps, after all--
+
+"Waiter," he called, "we'll trifle with another quart of extra-dry, if
+you please."
+
+"To your success," he added to his companion across the table, when
+the waiter had returned from his mission.
+
+
+II
+
+
+A year passed around, as years have a way of doing, and found
+Calmar Bye, the city man, metamorphosed indeed. Bronzed, bearded,
+corduroy-clothed, cigarette-smoking,--for cigars fifty miles from a
+railroad are a curiosity,--as the seasons are dissimilar, so was he
+unlike his former inconsequent self. In his every action now was a
+directness and a purpose of which he had not even a conception in
+his former existence.
+
+Very, very thin upon us all is the veneer of civilization; very, very
+swift is the reversion to the primitive when opportunity presents.
+Only twelve short months and this man, end product of civilization,
+doer of nothing practical, dreamer of dreams and recorder of fancies,
+had become a positive force, a contributor to the world's food supply,
+a producer of meat. What a satire, in a period of time of which the
+shifting seasons could be counted upon one hand, to have vibrated
+from manuscript to beef, and for the change to be seemingly
+unalterable!
+
+To be sure there had been a struggle; a period of travail while
+readjustment was being established; a desperate sense of homesickness
+at first view of the undulating, grass-covered, horizon-bounded
+prairies; an insatiable need of the shops, the theatres, the
+telephones, the _cafes_, the newspapers, all of which previously had
+constituted everything that made life worth living. But these emotions
+had passed away. What evolvement of civilization could equal the
+beauty of a dew-scented, sun-sparkling prairie morning, or the
+grandeur of a soundless, star-dotted prairie night, wherein the very
+limitlessness of things, their immensity, was a never ending source of
+wonder? Verily, all changes and conditions of life have their
+compensations.
+
+Calmar Bye, the one time listless, had learned many things in this
+unheard-of world.
+
+First of all, most insistent of all, he was impressed with the
+overwhelming predominance of the physical over the mental. Later, in
+practical knowledge, he grew inured to the "feel" of a native bucking
+broncho and the sound of mocking, human laughter after a stunning
+fall; in direct evolution, the method of throwing a steer and the odor
+of burnt hair and hide which followed the puff of smoke where the
+branding iron touched ceased to be cruel.
+
+Last of all, highest evolvement of all, came the absorption of
+revolver-lore under the instruction of experts who made but pastime of
+picking a jack-rabbit in its flight, or bringing a kite, soaring high
+in air, tumbling precipitate to earth. A wild life it was and a rough,
+but fascinating nevertheless in its demonstration of the overwhelming
+superiority of man, the animal, in nerve and endurance over every
+other live thing on earth.
+
+At the end of the year, with the hand of winter again pressed firmly
+upon the land, it seemed time could do no more; that the adaptation of
+the exotic to his new surroundings was complete. Already the past life
+seemed a thing interesting but aloof from reality, like the fantastic
+exploits of a hero of fiction, and the present, the insistently
+active, vital present, the sole consideration of importance.
+
+In the appreciation of the stoic indifference of the then West it was
+a slight incident which overthrew. One cowboy, "Slim" Rawley, had a
+particularly vicious broncho, which none but he had ever been able to
+control, and which in consequence, he prized as the apple of his eye.
+During his temporary absence from the ranch one day a _confrere_,
+"Stiff" Warwick, had, in a spirit of bravado, roped the "devil" and
+instituted a contest of wills. The pony was stubborn, the man
+likewise, and a battle royal followed. As a buzzard scents carrion,
+other cowboys anticipated sport, and a group soon gathered. Ere
+minutes had passed the blood of the belligerents was up, and they were
+battling as for life, with a dogged determination which would have
+lasted upon the part of either, the man or the beast, until death.
+Rough scenes and inhuman, Bye had witnessed until _blase_; but nothing
+before like this. The man used quirt, rowel, and profanity like a
+fiend. The pony, panting, quivering, bucking, struggling, covered with
+foam and streaming with blood, shrilled with the impotent anger of a
+demon. Even the impassive cowboy spectators from chaffing lapsed into
+silence.
+
+Of a sudden, loping easily over the frost-bound prairie and following
+the winding trail of a cowpath, appeared the approaching figure of a
+horse and rider. It came on steadily, clear to the gathered group, and
+stopped. An instant and the newcomer understood the scene and a curse
+sprang to his lips. Another instant and his own mustang was spurred in
+close by the strugglers. His right hand raised in air and bearing a
+heavy quirt, descended; not upon the broncho, but far across the
+cursing, devilish face of the man, its rider. Then swift as thought
+and simultaneously as twin machines, the hands of the intruder and of
+the struggling "buster" went to their hips.
+
+The spectators held their breaths; not one stirred. Before them they
+saw the hands which had gone to hips flash up and forward like pistons
+from companion cylinders, and they saw two puffs of smoke like
+escaping steam.
+
+Smoothly, as a scene in a rehearsed play, the reports mingled, the
+riders, scarcely ten feet apart, tottered in their saddles, and
+slowly, unconsciously resistant even in death, the two bodies slipped
+to earth.
+
+[Illustration: They saw the hands which had gone to hips flash up and
+forward like pistons, and two puffs of smoke like escaping steam.]
+
+But there the unison ended. The mustang which "Slim" Rawley rode stood
+still in its tracks; but before the spectators could rush in, the
+"devil" broncho, relieved of the hand upon the curb, sprang away, and
+with the "buster's" foot caught fast in the stirrup ran squealing,
+kicking, crazy mad out over the prairie, dragging by its side the limp
+figure of its unseated enemy.
+
+Calmar Bye watched the whole spectacle as in a dream. So swift had
+been the action, so fantastic the denouement, that he could not at
+first reconcile it all with reality. He went slowly over to the
+prostrate "Slim" Rawley, whom the others had laid out decently upon
+the ground, half expecting him to leap up and laugh in their faces;
+but the already stiffening figure with the fiendish scowl upon its
+face, was convincing.
+
+Besides,--gods, the indifference of these men to death! The party of
+onlookers were already separating--one division, mounted, starting in
+pursuit of the escaping broncho, along the narrow trail made by the
+dragged man; the others impassively reconnoitring for spades and
+shovels, were stolidly awaiting the breaking of the lock of
+frost-bound earth at the hands of a big, red-shirted cowboy with a
+pick!
+
+"Here, Bye," suggested one toiler, "you're an eddicated man; say a
+prayer er something, can't ye, before we plant old 'Slim.' He wa'nt
+sech a bad sort."
+
+The tenderfoot complied, and said something--he never knew just
+what--as the dry clods thumped dully upon the huddled figure in the
+old gunny sack. What he said must have been good, for those present
+resisted with difficulty a disposition to applaud.
+
+This labor complete, the cowboys scattered, miles apart, each to his
+division of the herd, which for better range had been distributed over
+a wide territory. Bye was in charge of the home bunch, and sat long
+after the others had left, upon the new-formed mound in the ranch
+dooryard.
+
+Far over the broad, rolling prairies, as yet bare and frost-bound, the
+sun shone brightly. A half-mile away he could see his own herd
+scattered and grazing. The stillness after the sudden excitement was
+almost unbelievable. Minutes passed by which dragged into an hour.
+Over the face of the sun a faint haze began to form and, unnoticeable
+to one not prairie-trained, the air took on a sympathetic feel, almost
+of dampness. A native would have sensed a warning; but Calmar Bye, one
+time writer, paid no heed. An instinct of his life, one he had thought
+suppressed, a necessity imperative as hunger, was gathering upon him
+strongly--the overwhelming instinct to portray the unusual.
+
+Under its guidance, as in a maze, he made his way into the rough,
+unplastered shanty. Automatically he found a pencil and collected some
+scraps of coarse wrapping paper. Already the opening words of the tale
+he had to tell were in his mind, and sitting down by the greasy
+pine-board table, he began to write.
+
+Hours passed. Over the sun the haze thickened. The whole sky grew
+sodden, the earth a corresponding grayish hue. Now and anon puffs of
+wind, like sudden breaths, stirred the dull air, and the short
+buffalo grass trembled in anticipation. The puffs increased until
+their direction became definite, and at last here and there big,
+irregular feathers of snow drifted languidly to earth.
+
+Within the shanty the man wrote unceasingly. Many fragments he covered
+and deposited, an irregular heap, at his right hand. At his left an
+adolescent mound of cigarette stumps grew steadily larger. A cloud of
+tobacco smoke over his head, driven here and there by vagrant currents
+of air, gathered denser and denser.
+
+As the light failed, the writer unconsciously moved the rough table
+nearer and nearer the window until, blocked, it could go no farther.
+To one less preoccupied the grating over the uneven floor would have
+been startling. Once just outside the door the waiting pony neighed
+warningly--and again. Upon the ledge beneath the window-pane a tiny
+mound of snowflakes began to take form; around the shanty the rising
+wind mourned dismally.
+
+The light failed by degrees, until the paper was scarcely visible,
+and, brought to consciousness, the man rose to light a lamp. One look
+about and he passed his hand over his forehead, absently. Striding to
+the door, he flung it wide open.
+
+"Hell!" he muttered in complex apostrophe.
+
+To put on hat and top-coat was the act of a moment. To release the
+tethered pony the work of another; then swift as a great brown shadow,
+out across the whitening prairie to the spot he remembered last to
+have seen the herd, the delinquent urged the willing broncho--only to
+find emptiness; not even the suggestion of a trail.
+
+Back and forth, through miles and miles of country, in semi-circles
+ever widening, through a storm ever increasing and with daylight
+steadily diminishing, Calmar Bye searched doggedly for the departed
+herd; searched until at last even he, ignorant of the supreme terrors
+of a South Dakota blizzard, dared not remain out longer.
+
+That he found his way back to the ranch yard was almost a miracle. As
+it was, groping at last in utter darkness, blinded by a sleet which
+cut like dull knives, and buffeted by a wind like a hurricane, more
+dead than alive he stumbled upon the home shanty and opening the door
+drew the weary broncho in after him. Man and beast were brothers on
+such a night.
+
+Of the hours which followed, of moaning wind and drifting sleet,
+nature kindly gave him oblivion. Dead tired, he slept. And morning,
+crisp, smiling, cloudless, was about him when he awoke.
+
+Rising, and scarcely stopping for a lunch, the man again sallied forth
+upon his search, wading through drifts blown almost firm enough to
+bear the pony's weight and alternate spots wind-swept bare as a floor;
+while all about, gorgeous as multiple rainbows, flashed mocking bright
+the shifting sparkle from innumerable frost crystals.
+
+All the morning he searched, farther and farther away, until the
+country grew rougher and he was full ten miles from home. At last,
+stopping upon a small hill to reconnoitre, the searcher heard far in
+the distance a sound he recognized and which sent his cheek pale--the
+faint dying wail of a wounded steer. It came from a deep draw between
+two low hills, one cut into a steep ravine by converged floods and
+hidden by the tall surrounding weeds. Bye knew the place well and the
+significance of the sound he heard. In a cattle country, after a
+sudden blizzard, it could have but one meaning, and that the terror of
+all time to animals wild or domestic--the end of a stampede.
+
+Only too soon thereafter the searcher found his herd. Upon the
+brow of a hill overlooking the ravine he stopped. Below him,
+bellowing, groaning, struggling, wounded, dying, and dead--a great
+mass of heavy bodies, mixed indiscriminately--bruised, broken,
+segmented, blood-covered, horrible, lay the observer's trust, the
+wealth of his employer, his own hope of regeneration, worse now than
+worthless carrion. And the cause of it all, the sole excuse for
+this delinquency, lay back there upon a greasy table in the
+shanty--a short scrawling tale scribbled upon a handful of scrap
+paper!
+
+
+III
+
+
+"Yes, I'm back, Bob."
+
+The tall, thin Calmar Bye leaned back in his chair and looked
+listlessly about the familiar _cafe_, without a suggestion of emotion.
+It seemed to him hardly credible that he had been away from it all for
+a year and more. Nothing was changed. Across the room the same mirrors
+repeated the reflections he had observed so many times before. Nearby
+were the same booths and from within them came the same laughter and
+chatter and suppressed song. Opposite the tiny table the same man with
+the broad, good-natured face was making critical, smiling observation,
+as of yore. As ever, the look recalled the visionary to the present.
+
+"Back for good, Bob," he repeated slowly.
+
+The speaker's attitude was far from being that of a conquering hero
+returned; the sympathies of the easy-going Robert, ever responsive,
+were roused.
+
+"What's the matter, old man?" he queried tentatively. "Weren't you a
+success as a broncho-buster?"
+
+"A success!" Calmar Bye stroked a long, thin face with a long, thin
+hand. "A success!" he repeated. "I couldn't have been a worse
+failure, Bob." He paused a moment, smoothing the table-cloth absently
+with his finger tips.
+
+"Success!" once more, bitterly. "I'm not even a mediocre at anything
+unless it is at what I'm doing now, dangling and helping spend the
+money some one else has worked all day to earn." He looked his
+astonished friend fair in the eyes.
+
+"You don't know what an idiot, a worse than idiot, I've made of
+myself," and he began the story of the past year.
+
+Monotonously, unemotionally he told the tale, omitting nothing, adding
+nothing; while about him the sounds of the restaurant, the tinkling of
+glassware, the ring of silver, the familiar muffled pop of extracted
+corks, played a soft accompaniment. Occasionally Bob would make a
+comment or ask explanation of something to him entirely new; but that
+was all until near the end,--where the delinquent herder, coming
+swiftly to the brow of the hill, looked down upon the scene in the
+ravine below. Then Bob, the care-free, the pleasure-seeking, raised a
+hand in swift protest.
+
+"Don't describe it, please, old man," he requested. "I'd rather not
+hear."
+
+The speaker's voice ceased; over his thin features fell the light of a
+queer little half-smile which, instead of declaring itself, only
+provoked Bob Wilson's curiosity. In the silence Bye, with a hand
+unaccustomed to the exercise, made the familiar gesture that brought
+one of the busy attendants to his side.
+
+"And the story you wrote--?" suggested Wilson while they waited.
+
+For answer Calmar Bye drew an envelope from his pocket and tossed it
+across the table to his friend. Wilson first noted that it bore the
+return address of one of the country's foremost magazines; he then
+unfolded the letter and read aloud:
+
+  "DEAR MR. BYE:--
+
+  "The receipt of your two stories, 'Storm and Stampede' and 'The
+  Lonely Grave,' has settled a troublesome question for us,
+  namely: What has become of Mr. Calmar Bye?
+
+  "No doubt you will recall that our criticisms of the material
+  which you have submitted from time to time in the past,
+  were directed chiefly against faults arising out of your
+  unfamiliarity with your subjects. The present manuscripts
+  bear the best testimony that you have been gathering your
+  material at first hand. We have the feeling, as we read, that
+  every sentence flows straight from the heart.
+
+  "Now we want just such vivid, gripping, red-blooded cross-sections
+  of life as these, your two latest accomplishments; in fact, we
+  can't get enough of them. Therefore, instead of making you a cash
+  offer for these two stories, we suggest that you first call at
+  our office at your earliest convenience. If agreeable, we should
+  like to arrange for a series of Western stories and articles, the
+  evolving of which should keep you engaged for some time to come.
+
+                                                     "Cordially,
+                                                        "------"
+
+The hands of the two friends clasped across the table. No word
+disturbed the silence until the forgotten waiter broke in impatiently:
+
+"Yo' o'der, sahs?"
+
+"Champagne"--this time it was Calmar Bye who gave it--"a quart. And
+be lively about it, too."
+
+"Well, well!" Bob Wilson's admiration burst forth. "It is worth a
+whole herd of steers."
+
+
+
+
+THE STUFF OF HEROES
+
+
+Springtime on the prairies of South Dakota. It is early morning,
+the sun is not yet up, but all is light and even and soft and
+all-surrounding, so that there are no shadows. In every direction
+the gently rolling country is dotted brown and white from the
+incomplete melting of winter's snows. In the low places tiny
+streams of snow-water, melted yesterday, sing low under the
+lattice-work blanket the frost has built in the night. Nearby and in
+the distance prairie-chickens are calling, lonely, uncertain. Wild
+ducks in confused masses, mere specks in the distance, follow low
+over the winding curves of the river. High overhead, flocks of geese
+in regular black wedges, and brant, are flying northward, and the
+breezy sound of flapping wings and of voices calling, mingle in the
+sweetest of all music to those who know the prairies--Nature's
+morning song of springtime.
+
+"What a country! Look there!" The big man in the front seat of the
+rough, low wagon pointed east where the sun rose slowly from the lap
+of the prairie. The other men cleared their throats as if to speak,
+but said nothing.
+
+"And I've lived sixty years without knowing," continued the first
+voice, musingly.
+
+"I've never been West before, either," admitted De Young, simply.
+
+They drove on, the trickling of snow-water sounding around the wagon
+wheels.
+
+The third man, Clark, pointed back in the direction they had come.
+
+"Did any one back there inquire what we were doing?" he asked.
+
+"A fellow 'lowed,' with a rising inflection, that we were hunting
+ducks," said De Young. "I temporized; made him forget that I hadn't
+answered. You know what will happen once the curiosity of the natives
+is aroused."
+
+"I wasn't approached," Morris joined in, without turning. The corners
+of the big man's mouth twitched, as the suggested picture formed
+swiftly in his mind.
+
+After a pause, De Young spoke again.
+
+"I gave the postmaster a specially good tip to see that we got our
+mail out promptly."
+
+"So did I," Clark admitted.
+
+The face of the serious man lighted; and, their eyes meeting, the
+three friends smiled all together.
+
+The sun rose higher, without a breath of wind from over the prairies,
+and one after another the men removed their top-coats. The horses'
+hoofs splashed at each step in slush and running water, sending drops
+against the dashboard with a sound like rain.
+
+The trail which they were following could now scarcely be seen, except
+at intervals on higher ground, where hoof-prints and the tracks of
+wheels were scored in the soft mud, and with each mile these marks
+grew deeper and broader as the partly frozen earth softened.
+
+The air of solemnity which had hung about the men for days, and which
+lifted from time to time only temporarily, now silenced them again.
+Indeed, had there been anybody present to observe, he doubtless would
+have been impressed most of all with the unwonted soberness of the
+wagon's occupants, a gravity strangely at variance with the rampant,
+fecund season.
+
+And the object of their journeying into this unknown world was in all
+truth a matter for silence rather than speech; its influence was
+toward deep and earnest meditation, to which the joyous, awakening
+world could do no more than chant in a minor key a melancholy
+accompaniment. Never did a soldier advancing upon a breach in the
+enemy's breastworks more certainly confront the grinning face of
+Death, than did this trio in their progress across the singing
+prairie; but where the plaudits of the world spelled glory for the
+one, the three in the wagon knew that for them Death meant oblivion,
+extinction, a blotting out that must needs be utter and inevitable.
+
+The thoughts of each dwelt upon some aspect of two scenes which had
+happened only a brief fortnight previously. There had been a notable
+convention of physicians in a city many miles to the east. One
+delegate, a man young, slender, firm of jaw, his face shining with
+zeal and the spirit which courts self-immolation, had addressed the
+body. His speech had made a profound impression--after its first
+effect of sensation had subsided--upon the hundreds gathered there,
+who hearkened amazedly; but of those hundreds only two had been moved
+to lay aside the tools of their calling and follow him.
+
+And whither was he leading them? Into the Outer Darkness, each firmly
+believed. For them the future was spelled _nihil_; for the world,
+salvation--perhaps.
+
+The inspired voice still rang in memory.
+
+"Gentlemen, I repeat, it is a challenge.... The flag of the enemy is
+hung up boldly, flauntingly, in every public place.... Are we to
+permit this? Are we to sit idle and acknowledge ourselves beaten in
+the great struggle against Death? No, no, no! The Nation--yea, the
+whole civilized world--shrinks and shudders in terror before the sound
+of one dread word--_tuberculosis_!
+
+"Our professional honor--our personal honor as well, gentlemen--is at
+stake. A solemn charge is laid upon us.... We must die if need be;
+but we must conquer this monstrous scourge, which is the single cause
+of more than one death in every ten."
+
+And then, the deep silence which had marked the closing words:
+
+"Gentlemen, I can cure consumption," came the simple declaration. "If
+there are those among you who value Science more than gain; who are
+willing to dare with me, willing to pay the extreme price, if
+necessary--if there are any such among you, and I believe there are,
+meet with me in my rooms this evening."
+
+To the eight who accepted that invitation, Dr. De Young disclosed the
+details of his Great Experiment. It included, among many other things
+which no one but a physician can appreciate, the lending of their
+bodies to the Experiment's exemplification. Of the eight, two had
+agreed to follow him to the end. Each of the three had placed his
+house in order, and here they were, nearing that end, whatever it was
+to be.
+
+An hour passed, and now ahead in the distance a rough shanty came into
+view. It was the only house in sight, and the three men knew it was
+to be theirs. In silence they drew up where the men were unpacking
+their goods.
+
+"Good morning for ducks--saw a big flock of mallards back here in a
+pond," observed the man who took their team.
+
+The three doctors alighted without answering, and watching them, the
+man stroked a stubby red whisker in meditation.
+
+"Lord, they're a frost!" he commented.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Night had come, and the stars shone early from a sky yet light and
+warm. In the low places the waters sang louder than before, with the
+increase of a day's thawing. Looking away, the white spots were
+smaller and the brown patches larger; otherwise, all was the same, the
+prairie of yesterday, of to-day, and to-morrow.
+
+Tired with a day of settling, the three men stood in the doorway and
+for the first time viewed the country at night. They were not talkers
+at best, and now the immensity of the broad prairies held them silent.
+The daily struggle of life, the activity and rivalry and ambition
+which before to-night had seemed so great to these city-bred men, here
+alone with Nature and Nature's God, where none other might see,
+assumed their true worth. The tangled web of life loosened and many
+foreign things caught and held therein, fell out. Man, introspecting,
+saw himself at his real worth, and was not proud.
+
+The absolute quiet, so unusual, made them wakeful, and though tired,
+they sat long in the doorway, smoking, thinking. Small talk seemed to
+them profanation, and of that which was uppermost in each man's mind,
+none cared first to speak. A subtle understanding, called telepathy,
+was making of their several minds a thing united.
+
+"No, not to-night, it's too beautiful," said De Young at length, and
+the protesting voice sounded to his own ears as that of a stranger.
+
+The men started at the sound, and the glowing tips of three cigars
+described partial arcs in the half light as they turned each to each.
+No one answered. They were face to face with fundamentals at last.
+
+Minutes, an hour, passed. The cigars burned out, and as the pleasant
+odor of tobacco died away, there came the chill night air of the
+prairie. The two older men rose stiffly, and with a low good-night,
+stumbled into the darkness of the shanty.
+
+De Young sat alone in the doorway. He realized that it was the supreme
+hour of his life. In his mind, memory of past and hope of future met
+on the battlefield of the present, and meeting, mingled in chaos.
+Thoughts came crowding upon each other thick--the thoughts which come
+to few more than once in life, to multitudes, never; the thoughts
+which writers in every language, during all time, have sought words to
+express, and in vain.
+
+Everywhere the snow-streams sang lower and lower. A fog, dense,
+penetrating, born of early morning, wrapped all things about, uniting
+and at the same time setting apart. Shivering, he shut the door on the
+night and the damp, and as by instinct crept into bed. Listening in
+the darkness, the sound of the sleepers soothed him. Happier thoughts
+came, thoughts which made his heart beat more swiftly and his eyes
+grow tender; for he was yet young, and love untold ever dwelleth near
+heaven. Thus he fell asleep with a smile.
+
+"Choose, please. We'll take our turns in the order of length," said De
+Young, holding up the ends of three paper strips. Each man drew, and
+in the silence that followed, without a word Morris turned away,
+preparing swiftly for the operation.
+
+"Give me chloroform," he said, stretching himself horizontally,--adding
+as the others bent over him, "Inoculate deep, please. Let's not
+waste time."
+
+Swiftly, with the precision of absolute knowledge, the two physicians
+did their work. A mist was over their eyes, so that all the room
+looked dim, as to old men; and hands which had not known a tremor for
+years, shook as they emptied the contents of the little syringe,
+teeming with tiny, unseen, living rods. Clark's forehead was damp with
+a perspiration that physical pain could not have brought, and on De
+Young's face, time marked those minutes as months.
+
+It was all done with the habit of years. The two doctors carefully
+sterilized their instruments and replaced them in cases, then,
+silently, drawn nearer together than ever before, the two friends
+watched the return of consciousness. And Morris awakening, things
+real and of dreamland still confused to his senses, heard the soft
+voice which a legion of patients had thus heard and blessed, saying
+cheerily, "Wake up! wake up, my friend!"
+
+Thus the day passed. In turn, the men, hours apart, with active
+brains, and eyes wide open, sent their challenges to Death--each man
+his own messenger.
+
+The months slipped by. Suns became torrid hot, and cooled until it
+seemed there was light but not heat on earth. Days grew longer, and in
+unison, earth waxed greener; then in descending scale, both together
+waned. Migratory wings fluttering at night, and passing voices calling
+in the darkness--most lonely sounds of earth--gave place to singers of
+the day. The robin, the meadow-lark, the ubiquitous catbird, all born
+of prairie and of summer, came and went. Blackbirds in countless
+flocks followed. Again the calling of prairie-chickens was heard at
+eve and morning, and anon frost glistened in the air.
+
+At last throughout the land no sound of animal voice was heard, for
+winter bound all things firm and white. Another cycle was complete;
+yet, almost ere the record could be made, there appeared, moving far
+in the distance, a black triangle. Passing swiftly, with the sound of
+wings and calling voices, there sprang anew in all things animate a
+mixed feeling of gladness and unrest, which was the spirit of returned
+spring.
+
+Thus twice the cycle of the seasons passed, and again the sun of early
+spring, shining bright, set the tiny snow-streams singing. It
+glistened over the prairie on snow-drift and frost; it lit up the few
+scattered shingled roofs of settlers newly come; and shone in at the
+open door of a rough cabin we know, touching without pity the faces of
+the two men who watched its rise. Shining low, even with the prairie,
+it touched in vivid contrast an oblong mound of fresh earth, heaped up
+target distance from the cabin door.
+
+The mound had not been there long; neither snow or rain had yet
+touched it; it was still strange to the men in the doorway, who saw it
+vividly now, at time of sunrise. Though thus early, each man sat idly
+smoking, an open book reversed on the knee.
+
+De Young first broke the silence.
+
+"We must do something, or else decide to do nothing about Clark's
+mail." He shifted in his seat, looking away from the open door.
+
+"I don't know--whether--it would be kinder to tell them or not."
+
+A coughing fit shook Morris, and answering, a twitch as of pain
+tightened the corners of his companion's eyes. Minutes passed, and
+Morris sat limply in his chair, before he answered,
+
+"I thought at first we'd better write; now it seems different. Let's
+wait until we go back."
+
+Neither of the men looked at the other. They seldom did now; it
+was useless pain. Filled with the incomparable optimism of the
+consumptive, neither man realized his own condition, but marked the
+days of his friend. Morris, unbelieving, spoke of his friend's
+return; yet, growing weaker each day himself, spoke in all hope and
+conviction of his future work, recording each day his mode of
+successful treatment, despite interruptions of coughing which left
+him breathless and trembling for minutes. De Young saw, and in
+pity marvelled; yet, seeing, and as a physician knowing, he not for a
+moment applied the gauge to himself.
+
+Nature, in sportive mood, commands the Angel of Death, who with
+matchless legerdemain, keeps the mirror of illusion, unsuspected,
+before the consumptive's eyes; and, seeing, in derision the satirist
+smiles.
+
+Unavoidably acting parts, the two friends found a barrier of
+artificiality separating them, making each happier when alone. Thus
+day after day, monotonous, unchanging, went by. Not another person
+entered their door. From the little town a man at periods brought
+provisions and their mail, but the house was acquiring an uncanny
+reputation. They were not understood, and such are ever foreign. With
+the passage of time and the coming of the mound in the dooryard, the
+feeling had developed into positive fear, and travellers avoided the
+place as though warned by a scarlet placard.
+
+Morris grew weaker daily. At last the disillusionment that precedes
+death came to him. The artificial slipped from both men and a
+nearness like that of brothers, joined them. They spoke not of the
+future but of the past. Years slipped aside and left them back in the
+midst of active, brain-satisfying practice. Over again they performed
+operations, where life and death were separated but by a hair's width.
+Again, with eyes that brightened and breath that came more quickly,
+they lived their successes, and hand in hand, as children in the dark,
+told of their failures, and the tale was long, for they were but men.
+
+The end came quietly. A hemorrhage, a big spot of blood on the cover,
+a firm hand pressure, and Morris's parting words,
+
+"Save my notes."
+
+That night De Young knew no sleep. "I must finish the work," he said,
+in lame excuse. Well he knew there could be no rest for him that
+night. He did his task thoroughly, making record of things that had
+passed, with the precision of a physician who knows a patient but as
+material.
+
+A tramp, who, unknowing, had taken shelter in an outbuilding, waking
+in the night, saw the light. Moved by curiosity, he crawled up softly
+in the darkness, and peeped in at the window. In the half light he saw
+on the bed a thin, white face motionless in the expression which even
+he knew was death; and at the table, writing rapidly with manuscript
+all about, a man whose eyes shone with the brilliancy of disease, and
+with a face as pale as the face on the pillow. In the blank,
+unreasoning terror of superstition, he fled until Nature rebelled and
+would carry him no farther. Next day to all he saw, he told the tale
+of supernatural things which lingers yet around a prairie ruin, in
+whose dooryard are mounds built of man.
+
+The mail carrier calling next day saw a man with spots of scarlet
+heightening the contrast of a face pale as death, digging in the
+dooryard. The man worked slowly, for he coughed often and must rest.
+In kindness the carrier offered help, but was refused with words that
+brought to the listener's eyes a moisture unknown since boyhood, and
+the thought of which in days that followed, kept him silent concerning
+what he had seen.
+
+Summer, with the breath of warm life and the odor of growing things;
+with days made dreamy and thoughtful by the purring of the soft wind
+and the droning of insects; and nights when all was good; with stars
+above and crickets singing below--summer had come and was passing.
+
+De Young could no longer deceive himself. The personal faith that had
+upheld him so long--when friends had failed--could fight the
+inevitable no longer. With eyes wide open, he saw at last clearly,
+and, seeing, realized the end. He cared not for death; he was too
+strong for that; but it must needs be that, now, with the shadow of
+defeat lying dark over the future, the problem of motive, the great
+"why," should come uppermost in his mind demanding an answer.
+
+Once before, at the time when other men read from their lives, he
+caught glimpses of something beyond. Now again the mood returned, and
+he knew why he was as he was; that with him love was, and had been,
+stronger than Science and all else beside. He knew that whatever he
+might have done, the entering into his life of The Woman, and the
+knowledge that followed her coming, had inspired the supreme motive
+that thenceforth drove him forward. With this realization came a new
+life, a happier and a sadder life, in which all things underwent
+readjustment.
+
+Regret came as sadness, regret that he had not told this woman
+all; that in his blind confidence he had not written, but had
+waited--waited for this. He would wait no longer. He would tell
+her now. A thousand new thoughts came to his mind; a thousand new
+feelings surged over him as a flood, and he poured them out on paper.
+The man himself, not the physician, was unfolded for the first time in
+his life, and the writing of that letter which told all, his life,
+his love, that ended with a good-bye which was forever, was the
+sweetest labor of his life. He sealed the letter and sat for hours
+looking at it, dreaming.
+
+It was summer and the nights were short, so that with the writing and
+the dreams, morning had come. He could scarce wait that day for the
+carrier; time to him had become suddenly a thing most precious; and
+when at last the man appeared. De Young twice exacted the promise
+that the letter should be mailed special delivery.
+
+The reaction was on and all the world was dark. Fool that he was, two
+years had passed since he had heard from her. She also was a
+consumptive; might not--?
+
+The very thought was torture; perspiration started at every pore, and
+with the little strength that was left he paced up and down the room
+like a caged animal. A fit of coughing, such as he had never known
+before, seized him, and he dropped full length upon the bed.
+
+The limit was reached; he slept.
+
+As he had worked one night before to forget, so he spent the following
+days. It was the end, and he knew it; but he no longer cared. His
+future was centred on one event--the coming of a letter. Beyond that
+all was shadow, and he cared not to explore. He worked all that Nature
+would allow, carrying to completion his observations, admitting his
+mistake with a candor which now caused no personal pain. He spent much
+time at his journal, writing needless things: his actions, his very
+thoughts,--things which could not have been wrung from him before;
+but he was lonely and desperate. He must not think--'t was madness. So
+he wrote and wrote and wrote.
+
+He watched for the carrier all the daylight hours. His mail was light,
+and the coming infrequent. There had been time for an answer, and the
+watcher could no longer compose himself to write. All day he sat in
+the doorway, looking across the two mounds, down the road whence the
+carrier would come.
+
+And at last he came. Far down the road toward town one morning a
+familiar moving figure grew distinct. De Young watched as though
+fascinated. He wanted to shout, to laugh, to cry. With an effort that
+sent his finger nails deep into his palms, he kept quiet, waiting.
+
+A letter was in the carrier's hand. Struck by the look on De Young's
+face, the postman did not turn, but stood near by watching. The exile,
+once the immovable, seized the missive feverishly, then paused to
+examine. It was a man's writing he held, and he winced as at a blow,
+but with a hand that was nerved too high to tremble, he tore open the
+envelope. He read the few words, and read again; then in a motion of
+weariness and hopelessness indescribable, hands and paper dropped.
+
+"My God! And she never knew," he whispered.
+
+When next the carrier came, he shaped the third mound.
+
+
+
+
+ARCADIA IN AVERNUS
+
+
+                  "_For they have sown the wind, and
+                   they shall reap the whirlwind._"
+
+
+CHAPTER I--PRELUDE
+
+
+Silence, the silence of double doors and of padded walls was upon the
+private room of the down-town office. Across the littered, ink-stained
+desk a man and a woman faced each other. Threads of gray lightened the
+hair of each. Faint lines, delicate as pencillings, marked the
+forehead of the woman and radiated from the angles of her eyes. A deep
+fissure unequally separated the brows of the man, and on his shaven
+face another furrow added firmness to the mouth. Their eyes met
+squarely, without a motion from faces imperturbable in middle age and
+knowledge of life.
+
+The man broke silence slowly.
+
+"You mean," he hesitated, "what that would seem to mean?"
+
+"Why not?" A shade of resentment was in the answering voice.
+
+"But you're a woman--"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"And married--"
+
+The note of resentment became positive. "What difference does that
+make?"
+
+"It ought to." The man spoke almost mechanically. "You took oath
+before man and higher than man--"
+
+The woman interrupted him shortly.
+
+"Another took oath with me and broke it." She leaned gracefully
+forward in the big chair until their eyes met. "I'm no longer bound."
+
+"But I--"
+
+"I love you!" she interjected.
+
+The man's eyebrows lifted.
+
+"Love?" he inflected.
+
+"Yes, love. What is love but good friendship--and sex?"
+
+The man was silent.
+
+A strong white hand slid under the woman's chin and her elbow met the
+desk.
+
+"I meant what you thought," she completed slowly.
+
+"But I cannot--"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It destroys all my ideas of things. Your promise to another--"
+
+"I say he's broken his promise to me."
+
+"But your being a woman--"
+
+"Why do you expect more of me because I'm a woman? Haven't I feelings,
+rights, as well as you who are a man?" She waited until he looked up.
+"I ask you again, won't you come?"
+
+The man arose and walked slowly back and forth across the narrow room.
+At length he stopped by her chair.
+
+"I cannot."
+
+In swift motion his companion stood up facing him.
+
+"Don't you wish to?" she challenged.
+
+The hand of the man dropped in outward motion of deprecation.
+
+"The question is useless. I'm human."
+
+"Why shouldn't we do what pleases us, then?" The voice was insistent.
+"What is life for if not for pleasure?"
+
+"Would it be pleasure, though? Wouldn't the future hold for us more
+of pain than of pleasure?"
+
+"No, never." The words came with a slowness that meant finality. "Why
+need to-morrow or a year from now be different from to-day unless we
+make it so?"
+
+"But it would change unconsciously. We'd think and hate ourselves."
+
+"For what reason? Isn't it Nature that attracts us to each other and
+can Nature be wrong?"
+
+"We can't always depend upon Nature," commented the man absently.
+
+"That's an artificial argument, and you know it." A reprimand was in
+her voice. "If you can't depend upon Nature to tell you what is right,
+what other authority can you consult?"
+
+"But Nature has been perverted," he evaded.
+
+"Isn't it possible your judgment instead is at fault?"
+
+"It can't be at fault, here." The voice was neutral as before.
+"Something tells us both it would be wrong--to do--as we want to
+do."
+
+Once more they sat down facing each other, the desk between them as at
+first.
+
+"Artificial convention, I tell you again." In motion graceful as
+nature the woman extended her hand, palm upward, on the polished desk
+top. "How could we be other than right? What do we mean by right,
+anyway? Is there any judge higher than our individual selves, and
+don't they tell us pleasure is the chief aim of life and as such must
+be right?"
+
+The muscles at the angle of the man's jaw tightened involuntarily.
+
+"But pleasure is not the chief end of life."
+
+"What is, then?"
+
+"Development--evolution."
+
+"Evolution to what?" she insisted.
+
+"That we cannot answer as yet. Future generations must and will give
+answer."
+
+"It's for this then that you deny yourself?" A shade almost of
+contempt was in the questioning voice.
+
+The taunt brought no change of expression to the man's face.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The woman walked over to a bookcase, and, drawing out a volume,
+turned the pages absently. Without reading a word, she came back and
+looked the man squarely in the face.
+
+"Will denying yourself help the world to evolve?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"How?"
+
+"My determination makes me a positive force. It is my Karma for good,
+that makes my child stronger to do things."
+
+"But you have no child,"--swiftly.
+
+Their eyes met again without faltering.
+
+"I shall have--sometime."
+
+Silence fell upon them.
+
+"Where were you a century ago?" digressed the woman.
+
+"I wasn't born."
+
+"Where will your child be a hundred years from now?"
+
+"Dead likewise, probably; but the force for good, the Karma of the
+life, will be passed on and remain in the world."
+
+Unconsciously they both rose to their feet.
+
+"Was man always on the earth?" she asked.
+
+The question was answered almost before spoken.
+
+"No."
+
+"Will he always be here?"
+
+"Science says 'no.'"
+
+The woman came a step forward until they almost touched.
+
+"What then becomes of your life of denial?" she challenged.
+
+"You make it hard for me," said the man, simply.
+
+"But am I not right?" She came toward him passionately. "I come near
+you, and you start." She laid her hand on his. "I touch you, and your
+eyes grow warm. Both our hearts beat more quickly. Look at the
+sunshine! It's brighter when we're so close together. What of life?
+It's soon gone--and then? What of convention that says 'no'? It's but
+a farce that gives the same thing we ask--at the price of a few words
+of mummery. Our strongest instincts of nature call for each other. Why
+shouldn't we obey them when we wish?" She hesitated, and her voice
+became tender. "We would be very happy together. Won't you come?"
+
+The man broke away almost roughly.
+
+"Don't you know," he demanded, "it's madness for us to be talking like
+this? We'll be taking it seriously, and then--"
+
+The woman made a swift gesture of protest.
+
+"Don't. Let's be honest--with each other, at least. I'm tired of
+pretending to be other than I am. Why did you say 'being true to my
+husband'? You know it's mockery. Is it being true to live with a man I
+hate because man's law demands it, rather than true to you whom
+Nature's law sanctions? Don't speak to me of society's right and
+wrong! I despise it. There is no other tribunal than Nature, and
+Nature says 'Come.'"
+
+The man sat down slowly and dropped his head wearily into his hands.
+
+"I say again, I cannot. I respect you too much. We're intoxicated now
+being together. In an hour, after we're separate--"
+
+She broke in on him passionately.
+
+"Do you think a woman says what I have said on the spur of the moment?
+Do you think I merely happened to see you to-day, merely happened to
+say what I've said? You know better. This has been coming for months.
+I fought it hard at first; with convention, with your idea of right
+and wrong. Now I laugh at them both. Life is life, and short, and
+beyond is darkness. Think what atoms we are; and we struggle so hard.
+Our life that seems to us so short--and so long! A thousand, perhaps
+ten thousand such, end to end, and we have the life of a world. And
+what is that? A cycle! A thing self-created, self-destructive: then of
+human life--nothingness. Oh, it's humorous! Our life, a ten thousandth
+part of that nothingness; and so full of tiny--great struggles and
+worries!" She was silent a moment, her throat trembling, a multitude
+of expressions shifting swiftly on her face.
+
+"Do you believe in God?" she questioned suddenly.
+
+"I hardly know. There must be--"
+
+"Don't you suppose, then, He's laughing at us now?" She hesitated
+again and then went on, almost unconsciously. "I had a dream a few
+nights ago." The voice was low and very soft. "It seemed I was alone
+in a desert place, and partial darkness was about me. I was conscious
+only of listening and wondering, for out of the shadow came sounds of
+human suffering. I waited with my heart beating strangely. Gradually
+the voices grew louder, until I caught the meaning of occasional words
+and distinctly saw coming toward me the figure of a man and a woman
+bearing a great burden, a load so great that both together bent
+beneath the weight and sweat stood thick upon their brows. The edges
+of the burden were very sharp so that the hands of the man and the
+woman bled from the wounds and their shoulders were torn grievously
+where the load had shifted: those of the woman more than the man, for
+she bore more of the weight. I marvelled at the sight.
+
+"Suddenly an intense brightness fell about me and I saw, near and
+afar, other figures each bearing similar burdens. The light passed
+away, and I drew near the man and questioned him.
+
+"'What rough load is that you carry?' I asked.
+
+"'The burden of conventionality,' answered the man, wearily and with a
+note of surprise in his voice.
+
+"'Why do you bear it needlessly?' I remonstrated.
+
+"'We dare not drop it,' said the woman, hopelessly, 'lest that light,
+which is the searchlight of public opinion, return, showing us
+different from the others.'
+
+"Even as she spoke the illumination again fell upon us, and by its
+brightness I saw a drop of blood gather slowly from the wounds on the
+woman's hand and fall into the dust at her feet."
+
+A silence fell upon the inmates of the tiny muffled office.
+
+"But the burden isn't useless," said the man, gently. "The condemnation
+of society is an hourly reality. From the patronage of others we live.
+The sun burns us, but we submit, for in return it gives life."
+
+The woman arose with an abrupt movement, and looked down at him
+coldly.
+
+"Are you a man, and use those arguments?" An expression akin to
+contempt formed about her mouth. "Are you afraid of a united voice the
+individuals of which you despise?"
+
+The first hint of restrained passion was in the answering voice.
+
+"You taunt me in safety, for you know I love you." He looked up at her
+unhesitatingly. "Man's law is artificial, that I know; but it's made
+for conditions which are artificial, and for such it's right. Were we
+as in the beginning, Nature's law, which beside the law of man is no
+law, would be right; but we're of the world as it is now. Things are
+as they are, and we must conform or pay the price." He hesitated. His
+face settled back into a mask. "And that price of non-conformity is
+too high," he completed steadily.
+
+The eyes of the woman blazed and her hands tightened convulsively.
+
+"Oh, you're frozen--fossilized, man! I called you man! You're not a
+man at all, but a nineteenth century machine! You're run like a motor,
+from a power house; by the force of conventional thought, over wires
+of red tape. Fie on you! I thought to meet a human being, not a
+lifeless thing." She looked at him steadily, her chin in the air, a
+world of scorn in her face. "Go on sweating beneath the useless load!
+Go on building your structure of artificiality that ends centuries
+from now in nothingness! Here's happiness to you in your empty life of
+self-effacement, with your machine prompted acts, years considered!"
+Without looking at him, one hand made scornful motion of dismissal.
+"Good-bye, ghost of man; I wash my hands of you."
+
+"Wait, Eleanor!" The man sprang to his feet, the mask lifting from his
+face, and there stood revealed a multitude of emotions, unseen of the
+world, that flashed from the depths of his brown eyes and quivered in
+the angles of his mouth. He came quickly over and took her hand
+between his own.
+
+"I'm proud of you,"--a world of tenderness was in his voice--"unspeakably
+proud--for I love you. I've done my best to keep us apart, yet all the
+time I believed with you. Nature is higher than man, and no power on
+earth can prove it otherwise." He looked into the softest of brown
+eyes, and his voice trembled. "Beside you the world is nothing. Its
+approval or its condemnation are things to be laughed at. With you I
+challenge conventionality--society--everything." He bent over her hand
+almost reverently and touched it softly with his lips.
+
+"Farewell--until I come," he said.
+
+
+CHAPTER II--THE LEAP
+
+
+A man and a woman emerged from the dilapidated day-car as it drew up
+before the tiny, sanded station which marked the terminus of the
+railway. The man was tall, clean-shaven, quick of step and of glance.
+The woman was likewise tall, well-gloved, and, strange phenomenon at a
+country station, carried no parcels.
+
+Though easily the centre of attention, the couple were far from being
+alone. On the contrary, the car and platform fairly swarmed with
+humanity. Men mostly composed the throng that alighted--big,
+weather-stained fellows in rough jeans and denims. In the background,
+as spectators moved or lounged a sprinkling of others: thinner,
+lighter, enveloped in felt, woollen and buckskin, a fringe of heavy
+hair peeping out at their backs beneath the broad hat-brims. A few
+women were intermingled. Coarsely gowned, sun-browned, they stood;
+themselves like suns, but each the centre of a system of bleach-haired
+minor satellites. It was into this heterogeneous mass that the tall
+man elbowed his way, a neat grip in either hand; the woman following
+closely in his wake, her skirts carefully lifted.
+
+Clear of the out-flowing stream the man put down the satchels, and
+looked over the heads of the motley crowd into the still more motley
+street beyond. Two short rows of one-story buildings, distinctive by
+the brightness of new lumber on their sheltered side, bordered a
+narrow street, half clogged by the teams of visiting farmers. Not the
+faintest clue to a hostelry was visible, and the eyes of the man
+wandered back, interrupting by the way another pair of eyes frankly
+inquisitive.
+
+The curious one was short; by comparison his face was still shorter,
+and round. From his chin a tiny tuft of whiskers protruded, like the
+handle of a gourd. Never was countenance more unmistakably labelled
+good-humored, Americanized German.
+
+The eyes of the tall man stopped.
+
+"Is there a hotel in this"--he groped for a classification--"this
+city?" he asked.
+
+A rattling sound, startlingly akin to the agitated contents of
+over-ripe vegetables, came from somewhere in the internal mechanism of
+the small man. Inferentially, the inquiry was amusing to the
+questioned, likewise the immediately surrounding listeners who became
+suddenly silent, gazing at the stranger with the wonder of young
+calves.
+
+At length the innate spirit of courtesy in the German triumphed over
+his amusement.
+
+"Hans Becher up by the postoffice takes folks in." The inward
+commotion showed indications of resumption. "I never heard, though,
+that he called his place a hotel!"
+
+"Thank you," and the circle of silence widened.
+
+The man and the woman walked up the street. Beneath their feet the
+cottonwood sidewalk, despite its newness, was warped in agony under
+sun and storm. Big puddles of water from a recent rain stood in the
+hollows of the roadway, side by side with tufts of native grasses
+fighting bravely for life against the intruder--Man. A fresh,
+indescribable odor was in their nostrils; an odor which puzzled them
+then, but which later they learned to recognize and never forgot--the
+pungent scent of buffalo grass. A stillness, deeper than of Sabbath,
+unbelievable to urban ears, wrapped all things, and united with an
+absence of broken sky line, to produce an all-pervading sense of
+loneliness.
+
+Hans Becher did not belie his name. He was very German. Likewise the
+little woman who courtesied at his side. Ditto the choice assortment
+of inquisitive tow-heads, who stared wide-eyed from various corners.
+He shook hands at the door with each of his guests,--which action also
+was unmistakably German.
+
+"You would in my house--put up, you call it?" he inquired in labored
+English, while the little woman polished two speckless chairs with her
+apron, and with instinctive photographic art placed them stiffly side
+by side for the visitors.
+
+"Yes, we'd like to stay with you for a time," corroborated the tall
+man.
+
+The little German ran his fingers uncertainly through his hair for a
+moment; then his round face beamed.
+
+"We should then become to each other known. Is it not so?" Without
+pausing for an answer, he put out a big hand to each in turn. "I am
+Hans Becher, and this"--with elaborate indications--"this my wife
+is--Minna."
+
+Minna courtesied dutifully, lower than before. The little Bechers were
+not classified, but their connection was apparent. They calmly sucked
+their thumbs.
+
+The lords of creation obviously held the rostrum. It was the tall man
+who responded.
+
+"My name is Maurice, Ichabod Maurice." He looked at the woman, his
+companion, from the corner of his eye. "Allow me, Camilla, to present
+Mr. Becher." Then turning to his hosts, "Camilla Maurice: Mr. and Mrs.
+Becher."
+
+The tall lady shook hands with each.
+
+"Pleased to meet you," she said, and smiled a moment into their eyes.
+Thus Camilla Maurice made friends.
+
+There were a few low-spoken words in German and Minna vanished.
+
+"She will dinner make ready," Hans explained.
+
+The visitors sat down in their chairs, with Hans opposite studying
+them narrowly; singly and together.
+
+"The town is very new," suggested Ichabod.
+
+"One year ago it was not." The German's short legs crossed each other
+nervously and their owner seized the opportunity to make further
+inspection. "It is very new," he repeated absently.
+
+Camilla Maurice stood up.
+
+"Might we wash, Mr. Becher?" she asked.
+
+The ultimate predicament was all at once staring the little man in the
+face.
+
+"To be sure.... I might have known.... You will a room--desire." ...
+He ran his fingers through his hair, and inspiration came. "Mr.
+Maurice," he motioned, "might I a moment with you--speak?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Becher."
+
+The German saw light, and fairly beamed as he sought the safe
+seclusion of the doorway.
+
+"She is your sister or cousin--_nein_?" he asked.
+
+There was the faintest suggestion of a smile in the corners of
+Ichabod's mouth.
+
+"No, she is neither my sister nor my cousin, Mr. Becher."
+
+Hans heaved a sigh of relief: it had been a close corner.
+
+"She is your wife. One must know," and he mopped his brow.
+
+"Certainly--one must know," very soberly.
+
+Alone together in the little unfinished room under the rafters, the
+woman sat down on the corner of the bed, physical discomfort forgotten
+in feminine curiosity.
+
+"Those names--where did you get them?" she queried.
+
+"They came to me--at the moment," smiled the man.
+
+"But the cold-blooded horror of them!... Ichabod!"
+
+"The glory has departed."
+
+His companion started, and the smile left the man's face.
+
+"And Camilla?"--slowly.
+
+"Attendant at a sacrifice."
+
+Of a sudden the room became very still.
+
+Ichabod, exploring, discovered a tiny wash basin and a bucket of
+water.
+
+"You wished to wash, Camilla?"
+
+The woman did not move.
+
+"They were very kind"--she looked through the window with the tiny
+panes: "have we any right to--lie to them?"
+
+"We have not lied."
+
+"Tacitly."
+
+"No. I'm Ichabod Maurice and you're Camilla Maurice. We have not
+lied."
+
+"But--"
+
+"The past is dead, dead!"
+
+The woman's face dropped into her hands. Woman ever weeps instinctively
+for the dead.
+
+"You are sorry that it is--so?" There was no bitterness in the man's
+voice, but he did not look at her, and Camilla misunderstood.
+
+"Sorry!" She came close, and a soft warm face pressed tightly against
+his face. "Sorry!" Her arms were around him. "Sorry!" again repeated.
+"No! No! No! No, without end! I'm not sorry. I'm Camilla Maurice, the
+happiest woman in the world!"
+
+Later they utilized the tin basin and the mirror with a crack across
+its centre. Dinner was waiting when they went below.
+
+To a casual observer, Hans had been very idle while they were gone. He
+sat absently on the doorstep, watching the grass that grew almost
+visibly in the warm spring sun. Occasionally he tapped his forehead
+with his finger tips. It helped him to think, and just now he sadly
+needed assistance.
+
+"Who were these people, anyway?" he wondered. Not farmers, certainly.
+Farmers did not have hands that dented when you pressed them, and
+farmers' wives did not lift their skirts daintily from behind. Hans
+had been very observant as his visitors came up the muddy street. No,
+that was not the way of farmers' wives: they took hold at the sides
+with both hands, and splashed right through on their heels.
+
+Hans pulled the yellow tuft on his chin. What could they be, then? Not
+summer boarders. It was only early spring; and, besides, although the
+little German was an optimist, even he could not imagine any one
+selecting a Dakota prairie for an outing. Yet ... No, they could not
+be summer boarders.
+
+But what then? In his intensity Hans actually forgot the grass and,
+unfailing producer of inspiration, ran his fingers frantically through
+his mane.
+
+"Ah--at last--of course!" The round face beamed and a hard hand smote
+a harder knee, joyously. That he had not remembered at once! It was
+the new banker, to be sure. He would tell Minna, quite as a matter of
+fact, for there could be no mistake. Hank Judge, the machine agent,
+and Eli Stevens, the proprietor of the corner store, had said only
+yesterday there was to be a bank. Looking up the street the little man
+spied a familiar figure, and sprang to his feet as though released by
+a spring, his hand already in the air. There was Hank Judge, now, and
+he didn't know--
+
+"Dinner, Hans," announced Minna at his elbow.
+
+Holding the child of his brain hard in both hands lest it should
+escape prematurely, the little German went inside to preside over a
+repast, the distinctively German incense of which ascended most
+appetizingly.
+
+Hans, junior, in a childish treble, spoke an honest little German
+blessing, beginning "_Mein Vater von Himmel_," and emphasized by the
+raps of Hans senior's knuckles on certain other small heads to keep
+their owners quiet.
+
+"Fresh lettuce and radishes!" commented Camilla, joyously.
+
+"Raised in our own garden _hinein_," bobbed Minna, in ecstasy.
+
+"And sauerkraut--" began Ichabod.
+
+"From cabbages so large," completed Hans, spreading his arms to
+designate an imaginary vegetable of heroic proportions.
+
+"They must have grown very fast to be so large in May," commented
+Camilla.
+
+Hans and Minna exchanged glances--pitying, superior glances--such as
+we give behind the backs of the infirm, or the very old; and the
+subject of vegetables dropped.
+
+"A great country for a bank, this," commented Mr. Becher, with
+infinite _finesse_ and between intermittent puffs at a hot potato.
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+Hans nodded violent confirmation, then words, English words, being
+valuable to him, he came quickly to the test.
+
+"You will build for the bank yourself, is it not so?"
+
+It was not the German and Minna who exchanged glances this time.
+
+"No, I shall not build for the bank myself, Mr. Becher."
+
+"You will rent, perhaps?" Hans's faith was beautiful.
+
+"No, I shall not rent."
+
+The German's face fell. To have wasted all that thought; for after all
+it was not the banker!
+
+Minna, senior, stared in surprise, and her attention being diverted,
+Minna the younger seized the opportunity to inundate herself with a
+cup of hot coffee.
+
+The spell was broken.
+
+"I'm going to take a homestead," explained Ichabod.
+
+Hans's fork paused in mid-air and his mouth forgot to close. At the
+point where the German struck, the earth was very hard.
+
+"So?" he interrogated, weakly.
+
+At this juncture the difference between the two Minnas, which had been
+transferred from the table to the kitchen, was resumed; and although
+Ichabod ate the remaining kraut to the last shred, and Camilla talked
+to Hans of the _Vaterland_ in his native German, each knew the
+occasion was a failure. An ideal had been raised, the ideal of a
+Napoleon of finance, a banker; and that ideal materializing, lo there
+stood forth a farmer! _Ach Gott von Himmel!_
+
+After dinner Hans stood in the doorway and pointed out the land-office.
+Ichabod thanked him, and under the impulse of habit felt in his
+pocket for a cigar. None was there, and all at once he remembered
+Ichabod Maurice did not smoke. Strange he should have such an
+abominable inclination to do so just then; but nevertheless the fact
+remained. Ichabod Maurice never had smoked.
+
+He started up the street.
+
+A small man, with very high boots and a very long moustache, sat
+tipped back in the sun in front of the land-office. He was telling a
+story; a good one, judging from the attention of the row of listeners.
+He grasped the chair tightly with his left hand while his right,
+holding a cob pipe, gesticulated actively. The story halted abruptly
+as Ichabod came up.
+
+"Howdy!" greeted the little man.
+
+Maurice nodded.
+
+"Don't let me interrupt you," he temporized.
+
+"Not at all," courtesied the teller of stories, as he led the way
+inside. "I've told that one until I'm tired of it, anyway." He tapped
+the ashes from his pipe-bowl, meditatively. "A fellow has to kill the
+time some way, though, you know."
+
+"Yes, I know," acquiesced Ichabod.
+
+The agent took a chair behind the battered pine desk, and pointed to
+another opposite.
+
+"Any way I can help you?" he suggested.
+
+"Yes," answered Maurice. "I'm thinking of taking a homestead."
+
+The agent looked his visitor up and down and back again; then, being
+native born, his surprise broke forth in idiom.
+
+"Well, I'm jiggered!" he avowed.
+
+It was Ichabod's turn to make observation.
+
+"I believe you; you look it," he corroborated at length.
+
+Again the little man stared; and in the silence following, a
+hungry-looking bird-dog thrust his thin muzzle in at the door, and
+sniffed.
+
+"Get out," shouted the owner at the intruder, adding in extenuation:
+"I'm busy." He certainly was "jiggered."
+
+Ichabod came to the rescue.
+
+"I called to learn how one goes at it to take a claim," he explained.
+"The _modus operandi_ isn't exactly clear in my mind."
+
+The agent braced up in his chair.
+
+"I suppose you'll say it's none of my business," he commented, "but as
+a speculation you'd do a lot better to buy up the claims of poor
+cusses who have to relinquish, than to settle yourself."
+
+"I'm not speculating. I expect to build a house, and live here."
+
+"As a friend, then, let me tell you you'll never stand it." A stubby
+thumb made motion up the narrow street. "You see this town. I won't
+say what it is--you realize for yourself; but bad as it is, it's
+advanced civilization alongside of the country. You'll have to go ten
+miles out to get any land that's not taken." He stopped and lit his
+pipe. "Do you know what it means to live alone ten miles out on the
+prairie?"
+
+"I've never lived in the country."
+
+"I'll tell you, then, what it means." He put down his pipe and looked
+out at the open door. His face changed; became softer, milder,
+younger. His voice, when he spoke, added to the impression of
+reminiscence, bearing an almost forgotten tone of years ago.
+
+"The prairie!" he apostrophized. "It means the loneliest place on
+God's earth. It means that living there, in life you bury yourself,
+your hopes, your ambitions. It means you work ever to forget the
+past--and fail. It means self, always; morning, noon, night; until the
+very solitude becomes an incubus. It means that in time you die, or,
+from being a man, become as the cattle." The speaker turned for the
+first time to the tall man before him, his big blue eyes wide open and
+round, his voice an entreaty.
+
+"Don't move into it, man. It's death and worse than death to such as
+you! You're too old to begin. One must be born to the life; must
+never have known another. Don't do it, I say."
+
+Ichabod Maurice, listening, read in that appeal, beneath the words,
+the wild, unsatisfied tale of a disappointed human life.
+
+"You are dissatisfied, lonesome--There was a time years ago
+perhaps--"
+
+"I don't know." The glow had passed and the face was old again, and
+heavy. "I remember nothing. I'm dead, dead." He drew a rough map from
+his pocket and spread it out before him.
+
+"If you'll move close, please, I'll show you the open lands."
+
+For an hour he explained homesteads, preemptions and tree claims, and
+the method of filing and proving up. At parting, Ichabod held out his
+hand.
+
+"I thank you for your advice," he said.
+
+The man behind the desk puffed stolidly.
+
+"But don't intend to follow it," he completed.
+
+Instinctively, metaphor sprang to the lips of Ichabod Maurice.
+
+"A small speck of circumstance, which is near, obliterates much that
+is in the distance." He turned toward the door. "I shall not be
+alone."
+
+The little agent smoked on in silence for some minutes, gazing
+motionless at the doorway through which Ichabod had passed out. Again
+the lean bird-dog thrust in an apologetic head, dutifully awaiting
+recognition. At length the man shook his pipe clean, and leaned back
+in soliloquy.
+
+"Man, woman, human nature; habit, solitude, the prairie." He spoke
+each word slowly, and with a shake of his head. "He's mad, mad; but I
+pity him"--a pause--"for I know."
+
+The dog whined an interruption from the doorway, and the man looked
+up.
+
+"Come in, boy," he said, in recognition.
+
+
+CHAPTER III--THE WONDER OF PRAIRIE
+
+
+Ichabod and Camilla selected their claim together. A fair day's drive
+it was from the little town; a half-mile from the nearest neighbor, a
+Norwegian, without two-score English words in his vocabulary. Level it
+was, as the surface of a lake or the plane of a railroad bed.
+
+Together, too, they chose the spot for their home. Camilla sobbed over
+the word; but she was soon dry-eyed and smiling again. Afterwards,
+side by side, they did much journeying to and from the nearest
+sawmill--each trip through a day and a night--thirty odd miles away.
+The mill was a small, primitive affair, almost lost in the straggling
+box-elders and soft maples that bordered the muddy Missouri,
+producing, amid noisy protestations, the most despisable of all lumber
+on the face of the globe--twisting, creeping, crawling cottonwood.
+
+Having the material on the spot, Ichabod built the house himself,
+after a plan never before seen of man; joint product of his and
+Camilla's brains. It took a month to complete; and in the meantime,
+each night they threw their tired bodies on the brown earth,
+indifferent to the thin canvas, which alone was spread between them
+and the stars.
+
+Too utterly weary for immediate sleep, they listened to the sounds of
+animal life--wholly unfamiliar to ears urban trained--as they stood
+out distinct by contrast with a silence otherwise absolute as the
+grave.
+
+... The sharp bark of the coyote, near or far away; soft as an echo,
+the gently cadenced tremolo of the prairie owl. To these, the mere
+opening numbers of the nightly concerts, the two exotics would listen
+wonderingly; then, of a sudden, typical, indescribable, lonely as
+death, there would boom the cry which, as often as it was repeated,
+recalled to Ichabod's mind the words of the little man in the
+land-office, "loneliest sound on earth"--the sound which, once heard,
+remains forever vivid--the night call of the prairie rooster. Even
+now, new and fascinating as it all was, at the last wailing cry the
+two occupants of the tent would reach out in the darkness until their
+hands met. Not till then would they sleep.
+
+In May, they finished and moved their few belongings into the odd
+little two-room house. True to instinct, Ichabod had built a
+fireplace, though looking in any direction until the earth met the
+sky, not a tree was visible; and Camilla had added a cozy reading
+corner, which soon developed into a sleeping corner,--out-of-door
+occupations in sun and wind being insurmountable obstacles to mental
+effort.
+
+But what matter! One straggling little folio, the local newspaper,
+made its way into the corner each week--and that was all. They had cut
+themselves off from the world, deliberately, irrevocably. It was but
+natural that they should sleep. All dead things sleep!
+
+Month after month slipped by, and the first ripple of local excitement
+and curiosity born of their advent subsided. Ichabod knew nothing of
+farming, but to learn was simple. It needed only that he watch what
+his neighbors were doing, and proceed to do likewise. He learned soon
+to hold a breaking-plough in the tough prairie sod, and to swear
+mightily when it balked at an unusually tough root. As well, he came
+to know the oily feel of flax as he scattered it by hand over the
+brown breaking. Later he learned the smell of buckwheat blossoms, and
+the delicate green coloring of sod corn, greener by contrast with its
+dark background.
+
+Nor was Camilla idle. The dresses she had brought with her, dainty
+creations of foreign make, soon gave way to domestic productions of
+gingham and print. In these, the long brown hands neatly gloved, she
+struggled with a tiny garden, becoming in ratio as passed the weeks,
+warmer, browner, and healthier.
+
+"Are you happy?" asked Ichabod, one day, observing her thus amid the
+fruits of her hands.
+
+Camilla hesitated. Catching her hand, Ichabod lifted her chin so that
+their eyes met.
+
+"Tell me, are you happy?" he repeated.
+
+Another pause, though her eyes did not falter.
+
+"Happier than I ever thought to be." She touched his sleeve tenderly.
+"But not completely so, for--" she was not looking at him now,--"for
+I love you, and--and--I'm a woman."
+
+They said no more; and though Ichabod went back to his team, it was
+not to work. For many minutes he stood motionless, a new problem of
+right and wrong throbbing in his brain.
+
+Fall came slowly, bringing the drowsy, hazy days of so-called Indian
+Summer. It was the season of threshing, and all day long to the drowse
+of the air was added, near and afar, all-pervading through the
+stillness, the sleepy hum of the separator. Typical voice of the
+prairie was that busy drone, penetrating to the ears as the ubiquitous
+odor of the buffalo grass to the nostril, again bearing resemblance in
+that, once heard, memory would reproduce the sound until recollection
+was no more.
+
+Winter followed, and they, who had thought the earth quiet before,
+found it still now indeed. Even the voice of the prairie-chicken was
+hushed; only the sharp knife-like cutting of spread wings told of a
+flock's passage at night. The level country, mottled white with
+occasional drifts, and brown from spots blown bare by the wind,
+stretched out seemingly interminable, until the line of earth and sky
+met.
+
+Idle perforce, the two exotics would stand for hours in the sunshine
+of their open doorway, shading their eyes from the glare and looking
+out, out into the distance that was as yet only a name--and that the
+borrowed name of an Indian tribe.
+
+"What a country!" Camilla would say, struck each time anew with a
+never-ending wonder.
+
+"Yes, what a country," Ichabod would echo, unconscious that he had
+repeated the same words in the same way a score of times before.
+
+In January, a blizzard settled upon them, and for two days and nights
+they took turns keeping the big kitchen stove red hot. The West knows
+no such storms, now. Man has not only changed the face of the earth,
+but, in so doing, has annihilated that terror of the past--the Dakota
+blizzard.
+
+In those days, though, it was very real, as Ichabod learned. He had
+prepared for winter, by hauling a huge pile of cordwood and stacking
+it, as a protection to windward, the full length of the little cabin,
+thinking the spot always accessible; but he had builded in ignorance.
+
+The snow first commenced falling in the afternoon. By the next morning
+the tiny house was buried to the window sashes. Looking out, there
+could be seen but an indistinct slanting white wall, scarcely ten feet
+away: a screen through which the sunlight filtered dimly, like the
+solemn haze of a church. The earth was not silent, now. The falling of
+the sleet and snow was as the striking of fine shot, and the sound of
+the wind a steady unceasing moan, resembling the sigh of a big dynamo
+at a distance.
+
+Slowly, inch by inch, during that day the snow crept up the window
+panes until, before the coming of darkness without, it fell within.
+Banked though they were on three sides, on the fourth side,
+unprotected, the cold penetrated bitterly,--a cold no living thing
+could withstand without shelter. Then it was that Ichabod and Camilla
+feared to sleep, and that the long vigil began.
+
+By the next morning there was no light from the windows. The snow had
+drifted level with the eaves. Ichabod stood in the narrow window
+frame, and, lowering the glass from the top, beat a hole upward with a
+pole to admit air. Through the tunnel thus formed there filtered the
+dull gray light of day: and at its end, obstructing, there stood
+revealed a slanting drab wall,--a condensed milky way.
+
+The storm was yet on, and he closed the window. To get outside for
+fuel that day was impossible, so with an axe Ichabod chopped a hole
+through the wall into the big pile, and on wood thus secured sawed
+steadily in the tiny kitchen, while the kerosene lamp at his side
+sputtered, and the fire crackled in a silence, like that surrounding a
+hunted animal in its den.
+
+Many usual events had occurred in the lives of the wandering Ichabod
+and Camilla, which had been forgotten; but the memory of that day, the
+overwhelming, incontestible knowledge of the impotency of wee,
+restless, inconsequent man, they were never to forget.
+
+"Tiny, tiny, mortal!" laughed the storm. "To think you would combat
+Nature, would defy her, the power of which I am but one of many, many
+manifestations!" And it laughed again. The two prisoners, listening,
+their ears to the tunnel, heard the sound, and felt to the full its
+biting mockery.
+
+Next day the siege was raised, and the sun smiled as only the sun can
+smile upon miles and miles of dazzling snow crystals. Ichabod climbed
+out--by way of the window route--and worked for hours with a shovel
+before he had a channel from the tiny, submerged shanty to the light
+of day beyond. Then together he and Camilla stood side by side in the
+doorway, as they had done so many times before, looking about them at
+the boundless prairie, drifted in waves of snow like the sea: the
+wonder of it all, ever new, creeping over them.
+
+"What a country!" voiced Camilla.
+
+"What a country, indeed," echoed Ichabod.
+
+"Lonely and mysterious as Death."
+
+"Yes, as Death or--Life."
+
+
+CHAPTER IV--A REVELATION
+
+
+Time, unchanging automaton, moved on until late spring. Paradox of
+nature, the warm brown tints of chilly days gave place under the heat
+of slanting suns to the cool green of summer. All at once, sudden as
+though autochthonal, there appeared meadow-larks and blackbirds: dead
+weeds or man-erected posts serving in lieu of trees as vantage points
+from which to sing. Ground squirrels whistled cheerily from newly
+broken fields and roadways. Coveys of quail, tame as barn-yard fowls,
+played about the beaten paths, and ran pattering in the dust ahead of
+each passing team. Again, from its winter's rest, lonely, uncertain as
+to distance, came the low, booming call of the prairie rooster. Nature
+had awakened, and the joy of that awakening was upon the land.
+
+Of a morning in May the faded, dust-covered day-coach drew in at the
+tiny prairie village. A little man alighted. He stood a moment on the
+platform, his hands deep in his pockets, a big black cigar between his
+teeth, and looked out over the town. The coloring of the short
+straggling street was more weather-stained than a year ago, yet still
+very new, and the newcomer smiled as he looked; a big broad smile that
+played about his lips, turning up the corners of his brown moustache,
+showing a flash of white teeth, and lighting a pair of big blue eyes
+which lay, like a woman's, beneath heavy lashes. In youth, that smile
+would have been a grin; but it was no grin now. The man was far from
+youth, and about the mouth and eyes were deep lines, which told of one
+who knew of the world.
+
+Slowly the smile disappeared, and as it faded the little man puffed
+harder at the cigar. Evidently something he particularly wished to
+explain would not become clear to his mind.
+
+"Of all places," he soliloquized, "to have chosen--this!"
+
+He started up the street, over the irregular warping sidewalk.
+
+"Hotel, sir-r?" The formula was American, the trilling r's distinctly
+German.
+
+The traveller turned at the sound, to make acquaintance with Hans
+Becher; for it was Hans Becher, very much metamorphosed from the
+retiring German of a year ago. He made the train regularly now.
+
+The small man nodded and held out his grip; together they walked up
+the street. In front of the hotel they stopped, and the stranger
+pulled out his watch.
+
+"Is there a livery here?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; at the street end--the side to the left hand."
+
+"Thanks. I'll be back with you this evening."
+
+Hans Becher stared, open-mouthed, as the man moved off.
+
+"You will not to dinner return?"
+
+The little man stopped, and smiled without apparent reason.
+
+"No. Keep the grip. I expect to lunch," again he smiled without
+provocation, "elsewhere. By the way," he added, as an afterthought,
+"can you tell me where Mr. Maurice--Ichabod Maurice--lives?"
+
+The German nodded violent confirmation of a direction indicated by his
+free hand.
+
+"Straight out, eight miles. Little house with _paint_"--strong
+emphasis on the last--"_white_ paint."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+Hans saw the escape of an opportunity.
+
+"They are friends of yours, perhaps?"--he grasped at it.
+
+The little man did not turn, but the smile that seemed almost a habit,
+sprang to his face.
+
+"Yes, they're--friends of mine," he corroborated.
+
+Hans, personification of knowledge, stood bobbing on the doorstep,
+until the trail of smoke vanished from sight, then brought the satchel
+inside and set it down hard.
+
+"Her brother has come," he announced to the wide-eyed Minna.
+
+"_Wessen Bruder?_" Minna was obviously excited, as attested by the
+lapse from English.
+
+"Are we not now Americans naturalized?" rebuked Hans, icily. Suddenly
+he thawed. "Whose brother! The brother of Camilla Maurice, to be
+sure."
+
+Minna scrutinized the bag, curiously.
+
+"Did he so--inform you?" she questioned unadvisedly.
+
+"It was not necessary. I have eyes."
+
+Offended masculine dignity clumped noisily toward the door;
+instinctive feminine diplomacy sprang to the rescue.
+
+"You are so wise, Hans!"
+
+And Peace, sweet Peace, returned to the household of Becher.
+
+Meanwhile the little man had secured a buggy, and was jogging out into
+the country. He drove very leisurely, looking about him curiously. Of
+a sudden he threw down his cigar, and sniffed at the air.
+
+"Buffalo grass, I'll wager! I've heard of it," and in the instinctive
+action of every newcomer he sniffed again.
+
+Camilla Maurice sat in front of her tiny house, the late morning sun
+warm about her; one hand supported a book, slanted carefully to avoid
+the light, the other held the crank of a barrel-churn. As she read,
+she turned steadily, the monotonous _chug!_ _chug!_ of the tumbling
+cream drowning all other sounds.
+
+Suddenly the shadow of a horse passed her and a rough livery buggy
+stopped at her side. She looked up. Instinctively her hand dropped the
+crank, and her face turned white; then equally involuntarily she
+returned to her work, and the _chug!_ _chug!_ continued.
+
+"Does Ichabod Maurice," drawling emphasis on the name, "live here?"
+asked a voice.
+
+"He does." Camilla's chin was trembling; her answer halted abruptly.
+
+The man looked down at her, genuine amusement depicted upon his face.
+
+"Won't you please stop your work for a moment, Camilla?"
+
+With the name, one hand made swift movement of deprecation. "Pardon if
+I mistake, but I take it you're Camilla Maurice?"
+
+"Yes, I'm Camilla Maurice."
+
+"Quite so! You see, Ichabod and I were old chums together in
+college--all that sort of thing; consequently I've always wanted to
+meet--"
+
+The woman stood up. Her face still was very white, but her chin did
+not tremble now.
+
+"Let's stop this farce," she insisted. "What is it you wish?"
+
+The man in the buggy again made a motion of deprecation.
+
+"I was just about to say, that happening to be in town, and
+incidentally hearing the name, I wondered if it were possible.... But,
+pardon, I haven't introduced myself. Allow me--" and he bowed
+elaborately. "Arnold, Asa Arnold.... You've heard Ichabod mention my
+name, perhaps?"
+
+The woman held up her hand.
+
+"Again I ask, what do you wish?"
+
+"Since you insist, first of all I'd like to speak a moment with
+Ichabod." His face changed suddenly. "For Heaven's sake, Eleanor, if
+he must alter his name, why did he choose such a barbaric substitute
+as Ichabod?"
+
+"Were he here"--evenly--"he'd doubtless explain that himself."
+
+"He's not here, then?" No banter in the voice now.
+
+"Never fear"--quickly--"he'll return."
+
+A moment they looked into each other's eyes; challengingly, as they
+had looked unnumbered times before.
+
+"As you suggest, Eleanor," said the man, slowly, "this farce has gone
+far enough. Where may I tie this horse? I wish to speak with you."
+
+Camilla pointed to a post, and silently went toward the house. Soon
+the man followed her, stopping a moment to take a final puff at his
+cigar before throwing it away.
+
+Within the tiny kitchen they sat opposite, a narrow band of warm
+spring sunshine creeping in at the open door separating them. The
+woman looked out over the broad prairie, her color a trifle higher
+than usual, the lids of her eyes a shade nearer together--that was
+all. The man crossed his legs and waited, looking so small that he
+seemed almost boyish. In the silence, the drone of feeding poultry
+came from the back-yard, and the sleepy breathing of the big collie on
+the steps sounded plainly through the room.
+
+A minute passed. Neither spoke. Then, with a shade of annoyance, the
+man shifted in his chair.
+
+"I thought, perhaps, you'd have something you wished to say. If not,
+however--" He paused meaningly.
+
+"You said a moment ago, you wished to speak to _me_."
+
+"As usual, you make everything as difficult as possible." The shade of
+annoyance became positive. "Such being the case, we may as well come
+to the point. How soon do you contemplate bringing this--this incident
+to a close?"
+
+"The answer to that question concerns me alone."
+
+An ordinary man would have laughed; but Asa Arnold was not an ordinary
+man--not at this time.
+
+"As your husband, I can't agree with you."
+
+Camilla Maurice took up his words, quickly.
+
+"You mistake. You're the husband of Eleanor Owen. I'm not she."
+
+The man went on calmly, as though there had been no interruption.
+
+"I don't want to be hard on you, Eleanor. I don't think I have been
+hard on you. A year has passed, and I've known you were here from the
+first day. But this sort of thing can't go on indefinitely; there's a
+limit, even to good nature. I ask you again, when are you coming
+back?"
+
+The woman looked at her companion, for the first time steadily. Even
+she, who knew him so well, felt a shade of wonder at the man who could
+adjust all the affairs of his life in the same voice with which he
+ordered his dinner. Before, she had always thought this attitude of
+his pure affectation. Now she knew better, knew it mirrored the man
+himself. He had done this thing. Knowing her whereabouts all the time,
+he had allotted her the past year, as an employer would grant a
+holiday to an assistant. Now he asked her to return to the old life,
+as calmly as one returns in the fall to the city home after an outing!
+Only one man in the world could have done that thing, and that man was
+before her--her husband by law--Asa Arnold!
+
+The wonder of it all crept into her voice.
+
+"I'm not coming back, can't you understand? I'm never coming back,"
+she repeated.
+
+The man arose and stood in the doorway.
+
+"Don't say that," he said very quietly. "Not yet. I won't begin, now,
+after all these years to make protestations of love. The thing called
+Love we've discussed too often already, and without result. Anyway,
+that's not the point. We never pretended to be lovers, even when we
+were married. We were simply useful, very useful to each other."
+
+Camilla started to interrupt him, but, preventing, he held up his
+hand.
+
+"We talked over a certain possibility--one now a reality--before we
+were married." He caught the look upon her face. "I don't say it was
+ideal. It simply _was_," he digressed slowly in answer, then hurried
+on: "That was only five years ago, Eleanor, and we were far from
+young." He looked at her, searchingly. "You've not forgotten the
+contract we drew up, that stood above the marriage obligation, above
+everything, supreme law for you and me?" Instinctively his hand went
+to an inner pocket, where the rustle of a paper answered his touch.
+"Remember; it's not a favor I ask of you, but the fulfilment of your
+own word. Think a moment before you say you'll never return."
+
+Camilla Maurice found an answer very difficult. Had he been angry, or
+abusive, it would have been easy; but as it was--
+
+"You overlook the fact of change. A lifetime isn't required for
+that."
+
+"I overlook nothing." The man went back to his chair. "You remember,
+as well as I, that we considered the problem of change--and laughed at
+it. I repeat, we're no longer in swaddling clothes."
+
+"Be that as it may, I tell you the whole world looks different to me
+now." The speaker struggled bravely, but the ghastliness of such a
+discussion wore on her nerves, and her face twitched. "No power on
+earth could make me keep that contract since I've changed."
+
+The suggestion of a smile played about the man's mouth.
+
+"You've succeeded, perhaps, in finding that for which we searched so
+long in vain, an aesthetic, non-corporeal love?"
+
+"I refuse to answer a question which was intended as an insult."
+
+The words out of her mouth, the woman regretted them.
+
+"Though quick yourself to take offence, you seem at no great pains to
+avoid giving affront to another." The man voiced the reprimand
+without the twitch of an eyelid, and finished with another question:
+"Have you any reason for doing as you've done, other than the one you
+gave?"
+
+"Reason! Reason!" Camilla Maurice stared again. "Isn't it reason
+enough that I love him, and don't love you? Isn't it sufficient reason
+to one who has lived until middle life in darkness that a ray of light
+is in sight? Of all people in the world, you're the one who should
+understand the reason best!"
+
+"Would any of those arguments be sufficient to break another
+contract?"
+
+"No, but one I didn't mention would. Even when I lived with you, I was
+of no more importance than a half-dozen other women."
+
+"You didn't protest at time of the agreement. You knew then my belief
+and," Arnold paused meaningly, "your own."
+
+A memory of the past came to the woman; the dark, lonely past, which,
+even yet, after so many years, came to her like a nightmare; the time
+when she was a stranger in a strange town, without joy of past or hope
+of future; most lonely being on God's earth, a woman with an
+ambition--and without friends.
+
+"I was mad--I see it now--lonely mad. I met you. Our work was alike,
+and we were very useful to each other." One white hand made motion of
+repugnance at the thought. "I was mad, I say."
+
+"Is that your excuse for ignoring a solemn obligation?" Arnold looked
+her through. "Is that your excuse for leaving me for another, without
+a word of explanation, or even the conventional form of a divorce?"
+
+"It was just that explanation--this--I wished to avoid. It's hard for
+us both, and useless."
+
+"Useless!" The man quickly picked up the word. "Useless! I don't like
+the suggestion of that word. It hints of death, and old age, and
+hateful things. It has no place with the living."
+
+He drew a paper from his pocket, slowly, and spread it on his knee.
+
+"Pardon me for again recalling past history, Eleanor; but to use
+a word that is dead!... You must have forgotten--" The writing,
+a dainty, feminine hand, was turned toward her, tauntingly,
+compellingly.
+
+The man waited for some response; but Camilla Maurice was silent. That
+bit of paper, the shadow of a seemingly impossible past, made her, for
+the time, question her identity, almost doubt it.
+
+Five years ago, almost to the day, high up in a city building, in a
+dainty little room, half office, half _atelier_, a man and a woman had
+copied an agreement, each for the other, and had sworn an oath ever to
+remain true to that solemn bond.... She had brought nothing to him,
+but herself; not even affection. He, on the other hand, had saved her
+from a life of drudgery by elevating her to a position where, free of
+the necessity of struggling for a bare existence, she might hope to
+consummate the fruition of at least a part of her dreams. On her
+part....
+
+"_Witnesseth: The said Eleanor Owen is at liberty to follow her own
+inclinations as she may see fit; she is to remain free of any and all
+responsibilities and restrictions such as customarily attach to the
+supervision of a household, excepting as she may elect to exercise her
+wifely prerogatives; being absolutely free to pursue whatsoever
+occupation or devices she may desire or choose, the same as if she
+were yet a spinster...._
+
+"_In Consideration of Which: The said Eleanor Owen agrees never so to
+comport herself that by word or conduct will she bring ridicule....
+dishonor upon the name...._"
+
+Recollection of it all came to her with a rush; but the words ran
+together and swam in a maddening blur--the roar from the street below,
+dull with distance; the hum of the big building, with its faint
+concussions of closing doors; the air from the open window, not like
+the sweet prairie air of to-day, but heavy, smoky, typical breath of
+the town, yet pregnant with the indescribable throb of spring,
+impossible to efface or to disguise! The compelling intimacy and
+irrevocability of that memory overwhelmed her, now; a dark, evil flood
+that blotted out the sunshine of the present.
+
+The paper rustled, as the man smoothed it flat with his hand.
+
+"Shall I read?" he asked.
+
+The woman's face stood clear--cruelly clear--in the sunlight; about
+her mouth and eyes there was an expression which, from repetition, we
+have learned to associate with the circle surrounding a new-made
+grave: an expression hopelessly desperate, desperately hopeless.
+
+Of a sudden her chin trembled and her face dropped into her hands.
+
+"Read, if you wish"; and the smooth brown head, with its thread of
+gray, trembled uncontrollably.
+
+"Eleanor!" with a sudden vibration of tenderness in his voice.
+"Eleanor," he repeated.
+
+But the woman made no response.
+
+The man had taken a step forward; now he sat down again, looking
+through the open doorway at the stretch of green prairie, with the
+road, a narrow ribbon of brown, dividing it fair in the middle. In the
+distance a farmer's wagon was rumbling toward town, a trail of fine
+dust, like smoke, suspended in the air behind. It rattled past, and
+the big collie on the step woke to give furious chase in its wake,
+then returned slowly, a little conscious under the stranger's eye, to
+sleep as before. Asa Arnold sat through it all, still as one
+devitalized; an expression on his face no man had ever seen before;
+one hopeless, lonely, akin to that of the woman.
+
+"Read, if you wish," repeated Camilla, bitterly.
+
+For a long minute her companion made no motion.
+
+"It's unnecessary," he intoned at last. "You know as well as I that
+neither of us will ever forget one word it contains." He hesitated and
+his voice grew gentle. "Eleanor, you know I didn't come here to
+insult you, or to hurt you needlessly;--but I'm human. You seem to
+forget this. You brand me less than a man, and then ask of me the
+unselfishness of a God!"
+
+Camilla's white face lifted from her hands.
+
+"I ask nothing except that you leave me alone."
+
+For the first time the little man showed his teeth.
+
+"At last you mention the point I came here to arrange. Were you
+alone, rest assured I shouldn't trouble you."
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean just this. I wouldn't be human if I did what you ask--if I
+condoned what you've done and are still doing." He was fairly started
+now, and words came crowding each other; reproachful, tempestuous.
+
+"Didn't you ever stop to think of the past--think what you've done,
+Eleanor?" He paused without giving her an opportunity to answer. "Let
+me tell you, then. You've broken every manner of faith between man and
+woman. If you believe in God, you've broken faith with Him as well.
+Don't think for a moment I ever had respect for marriage as a divine
+institution, but I did have respect for you, and at your wish we
+conformed. You're my wife now, by your own choosing. Don't interrupt
+me, please. I repeat, God has no more to do with ceremonial marriage
+now than he had at the time of the Old Testament and polygamy. It's a
+man-made bond, but an obligation nevertheless, and as such, at the
+foundation of all good faith between man and woman. It's this good
+faith you've broken." A look of bitterness flashed over his face.
+
+"Still, I could excuse this and release you at the asking, remaining
+your friend, your best friend as before; but to be thrown aside
+without even a 'by your leave,' and that for another man--" He
+hesitated and finished slowly:
+
+"You know me well enough, Eleanor, to realize that I'm in earnest when
+I say that while I live the man has yet to be born who can take
+something of mine away from me."
+
+Camilla gestured passionately.
+
+"In other words: while growling hard at the dog who approached your
+bone, you have no hesitation in stealing from another!" The
+accumulated bitterness of years of repression spoke in the taunt.
+
+Across the little man's face there fell an impenetrable mask, like the
+armor which dropped about an ancient ship of war before the shock of
+battle.
+
+"I'm not on trial. I've not changed my name--" he nodded significantly
+toward the view beyond the open door,--"and sought seclusion."
+
+Again the bitterness of memory prompted Camilla to speak the harshest
+words of her life.
+
+"No, you hadn't the decency. It was more pleasure to thrust your shame
+daily in my face."
+
+Arnold's color paled above the dark beard line; but the woman took no
+heed.
+
+"Why did you wait a year," continued the bitter voice, "to end
+in--this? If it must have been--why not before?"
+
+"I repeat, I'm not on trial. If you've anything to say, I'll listen."
+
+Something new in the man's face caught Camilla's attention, softened
+the tone of her voice.
+
+"I've only this to say. You've asked for an explanation and a promise;
+but I can give you neither. If there ever comes a time when I feel
+they're due you, and I'm able to comply, I'll give them both gladly."
+The absent look of the past returned to her eyes. "Even if I wished, I
+couldn't give you an explanation now. I can't make myself understand
+the contradiction. Somehow, knowing you so long, your beliefs crept
+insistently into my loneliness. It seems hideous now, but I was honest
+then. I believed them, too. I don't blame you; I only pity you. You
+were the embodiment of protest against the established, of the
+non-responsibility of the individual, of skepticism in everything.
+Your eternal 'why' covered my horizon. Every familiar thing came to
+bear a question I couldn't answer. My whole life seemed one eternal
+doubt. One thing I'd never known, and I questioned it most of all; the
+one thing I know now to be the truth,--the greatest truth in the
+world." For an instant the present crowded the past from Camilla's
+mind, but only for an instant. "Whatever I was at the time, you'd made
+me--with your deathless 'why.' When I signed the obligation of that
+day, I believed it was of my own free will; but I know now it was you
+who wrote it for both of us--you, with your perpetual interrogation. I
+don't accuse you of doing this deliberately, maliciously. We were both
+deceived; but none the less the fact remains." A shadow, almost of
+horror, passed over her face.
+
+"Time passed, and though you didn't know, I was in Hell. Reason told
+me I was right. Instinct, something, called me a drag. I tried to
+compromise, and we were married. Then, for the first time, came
+realization. We were the best of friends,--but only friends."
+
+"You wonder how I knew. I didn't tell you then. I couldn't. I could
+only feel, and that not clearly. The shadow of your 'why' was still
+dark upon me. What I vaguely felt then, though, I know now; as I
+recognize light or cold or pain." Her voice assumed the tone of one
+who speaks of mysteries; slow, vibrant. "In every woman's mind the
+maternal instinct should be uppermost; before everything, before
+God,--unashamed, inevitable. It's unmistakably the distinction of a
+good woman from a bad. The choosing of the father of her child is a
+woman's unfailing test of love."
+
+The face of the man before her dropped into his hands, but she did not
+notice.
+
+"Gropingly I felt this, and the knowledge came almost as an
+inspiration. It gave a clue to--"
+
+"Stop!" The man's eyes blazed, as he leaped from his chair. "Stop!"
+
+He took a step forward, his hand before him, his face twitching
+uncontrollably. The collie on the step awoke, and seeing his mistress
+threatened, growled ominously.
+
+"Stop, I tell you!" Arnold choked for words. This the man of "why,"
+whom nothing before could shake!
+
+Camilla paled as her companion arose, and the dog, bristling, came
+inside the room.
+
+"Get out!" blazed the man, with a threatening step, and the collie
+fled.
+
+The interruption loosed words which came tumbling forth in a torrent,
+as Arnold returned to face her.
+
+"You think I'm human, and yet tell me that to my face?" His voice was
+terrible. "You women brand men cruel! No man on earth would speak as
+you have spoken to a woman he'd lived with for four years!" The
+sentences crowded over each other, like water over a fall--his eyes
+flashing like a spray.
+
+"I told you before, I'm not on trial; that it was not my place to
+defend. I don't do so now; but since you've spoken, I'll answer your
+question. You ask why I didn't come a year ago, hinting that I wanted
+to be more cruel. God! the blindness and injustice of you women!
+Because we men don't show--Bah!... I was paying my own price. We
+weren't living by the marriage vow; it was but a farce. Our own
+contract was the vital thing, and it had said--But I won't repeat.
+God, it was bitter! But I thought you'd come back. I loved you still."
+He paused for words, breathing hard.
+
+"You say, I'll never know what love is. Blind! I've always loved you
+until this moment, when you killed my love. You say I was untrue. It's
+false. I swear it before--you, as you were once,--when you were my
+god. Had you trusted me, as I trusted you, there'd have been no
+thought of unfaithfulness in your mind."
+
+The woman sank back in the chair, her face covered, her whole body
+trembling; but Asa Arnold went on like the storm.
+
+"Yes, I was ever true to you. From the first moment we met, and
+against my own beliefs. You didn't see. You expected me to protest it
+daily: to repeat the tale as a child repeats its lesson for a comfit.
+Blind, I say, blind! You'll charge that I never told you that I loved
+you. You wouldn't have believed me, even had I done so. Besides, I
+didn't realize that you doubted, until the time when you were
+learning--" he walked jerkily across the room and took up his
+hat,--"learning the thing you threw in my face." He started to leave,
+but stopped in the doorway, without looking back. "You tell me you've
+suffered. For the first time in my life I say to another human being:
+I hope so." He turned, unsteadily, down the steps.
+
+"Wait," pleaded the woman. "Wait!"
+
+The man did not stop, or turn.
+
+Camilla Maurice sank back in the chair, weak as one sick unto death,
+her mind a throbbing, whirling chaos,--as of a patient under an
+anaesthetic. Something she knew she ought to do, intended doing, and
+could not. She groped desperately, but overwhelming, insistent, there
+had developed in her a sudden, preventing tumult--in paradox, a
+confusion in rhythm--like the beating of a great hammer on an anvil,
+only incredibly more swift than blows from human hands. Over and over
+again she repeated to herself the one word: "wait," "wait," "wait,"
+but mechanically now, without thought as to the reason. Then, all at
+once, soft, all-enfolding, kindly Nature wrapped her in darkness.
+
+She awoke with the big collie licking her hand, and a numbness of
+cramped limbs that was positive pain. A long-necked pullet was
+standing in the doorway, with her mouth open; others stood wondering,
+beyond. The sun had moved until it no longer shone in at the tiny
+south windows, and the shadow of the house had begun to lengthen.
+
+Camilla stood up in the doorway; uncertain, dazed. A great lump was on
+her forehead, which she stroked absently, without surprise at its
+presence. She looked about the yard, and, her breath coming more
+quickly, at the prairie. A broad green plain, parted by the road
+squarely in the centre, smiled at her in the sunlight. That was all.
+She stepped outside and shaded her eyes with her hand. Not a wagon nor
+a human being was in sight.
+
+Again the weakness and the blackness came stealing over her; she sank
+down on the doorstep.
+
+"O God, what have I done!" she wailed.
+
+The hens returned to their search for bugs; but the big collie stayed
+by her side, whimpering and fondling her hand.
+
+
+CHAPTER V--THE DOMINANCE OF THE EVOLVED
+
+
+The keen joy of life was warmly flooding Ichabod Maurice this
+spring day. Not life for the sake of an ambition or a duty, but
+delight in the mere animal pleasure of existence. He had risen
+early, and, a neighbor with him, they had driven forth: stars all
+about, perpendicular, horizontal, save in the reddening east, upon
+their long day's drive to the sawmill. The two teams plodded along
+steadily, their footfall muffled in the soft prairie loam; the
+earth elsewhere soundless, with a silence which even yet was a
+marvel to the city man.
+
+The majesty of it held him silent until day dawned, and with the
+coming of the sun there woke in unison the chorus of joyous animal
+life. Then Ichabod, his long legs dangling over the dashboard, lifted
+up a voice untrained as the note of a loon, and sang lustily, until
+his companion on the wagon ahead,--boy-faced, man-bodied,--grinned
+perilously.
+
+The long-visaged man was near happiness that morning,--unbelievably
+near. By nature unsocial, by habit, city inbred, artificially
+taciturn, there came with the primitive happiness of the moment
+the concomitant primitive desire for companionship. He smiled
+self-tolerantly when, obeying an instinct, he wound the lines around
+the seat, and went ahead to the man, who grinned companionably as
+he made room beside him.
+
+"God's country, this." Ichabod's hand made an all-including gesture,
+as he seated himself comfortably, his hat low over his eyes.
+
+"Yes, sir," and the grin was repeated.
+
+The tall man reflected. Sunburned, roughly dressed, unshaven as he,
+Maurice, was, this boy-man never failed the word of respect. Ichabod
+examined him curiously out of his shaded lids. Big brown hands; body
+strong as a bull; powerful shoulders; neck turned like a model; a soft
+chin under a soft, light beard; gentle blue eyes--all in all, a face
+so open that its very legibility seemed a mark. It reddened now,
+under the scrutiny.
+
+"Pardon," said Ichabod. "I was thinking how happy you are."
+
+"Yes, sir." And the face reddened again.
+
+Ichabod smiled.
+
+"When is it to be, Ole?"
+
+The big body wriggled in blissful embarrassment.
+
+"As soon as the house is built,"--confusedly.
+
+"You're building very fast, eh?"
+
+The Swede grinned confirmation. Words were of value to Ole.
+
+"I see the question was superfluous," and Ichabod likewise smiled in
+genial comradery. A moment later, however, the smile vanished.
+
+"You're very content as it is, Ole," he digressed, equivocally;
+"but--supposing--Minna were already the wife of a friend?"
+
+The Swede stared in breathless astonishment.
+
+"She isn't, though" he gasped at length in startled protest.
+
+"But supposing--"
+
+"It would be so. I couldn't help it."
+
+"You'd do nothing?" rank anarchy in the suggestion.
+
+"What would there be to do?"
+
+Ichabod temporized.
+
+"Supposing again, she loved you, and didn't love her husband?" Ole
+scratched his head, seeing very devious passages beyond. "That would
+be different," and he crossed his legs.
+
+Ichabod smiled. The world over, human nature is fashioned from one
+mould.
+
+"Supposing, once more, it's a year from now,--five years from now.
+You've married Minna, but you're not happy. She's grown to hate
+you,--to love another man?"
+
+Ole's faith was beautiful.
+
+"It's not to be thought of. It's impossible!"
+
+"But supposing," urged Ichabod.
+
+The boy-man was silent for a very long minute; then his face darkened,
+and the soft jaw grew hard.
+
+"I don't know--" he said slowly,--"I don't know, but I think I kill
+that man."
+
+Ichabod did not smile this time.
+
+"We're all much alike, Ole. I think you would."
+
+They drove on; far past the town, now; the sun high in the sky; dew
+sparkling like prisms innumerable; the prairie colorings soft as a
+rug--its varied greens of groundwork blending with the narrow line of
+fresh breaking rolling at their feet.
+
+"You were born in this country?" asked Ichabod suddenly.
+
+"In Iowa. It's much like this--only rougher."
+
+"You'll live here, always?"
+
+The Swede shook his head and the boy's face grew older.
+
+"No; some day, we're going to the city--Minna and I. We've planned."
+
+Ichabod was thoughtful a minute.
+
+"I'm a friend of yours, Ole."
+
+"A very good friend," repeated the mystified Swede.
+
+"Then, listen, and don't forget." The voice was vibrant, low, but the
+boy heard it clearly above the noise of the wagon. "Don't do it, Ole;
+in God's name, don't do it! Stay here, you'll be happy." He looked the
+open-mouthed listener deep in the eyes. "If you ever say a prayer,
+let it be the old one, even though it be an insult to a just
+God:--'Lead us not into temptation.' Avoid, as you would avoid death,
+the love of money, the fever of unrest, the desire to become greater
+than your fellows, the thirst to know and to taste all things, which
+is the spirit of the city. Live close to Nature, where all is equal
+and all is good; where sleep comes in the time of sleep, and work when
+it is day. Do that labor which comes to you at the moment, leaving
+to-morrow to Nature." He crossed his long legs, and pressed his hat
+down over his eyes. "Accept life as Nature gives it, day by day. Don't
+question, and you'll find it good." He repeated himself slowly.
+"That's the secret. Don't doubt, or question anything."
+
+In the Swede's throat there was a rattling, which presaged speech, but
+it died away.
+
+"Do you love children, Ole?" asked Ichabod, suddenly.
+
+The boy face flushed. Ole was very young.
+
+"I--" he lagged.
+
+"Of course you do. Every living human being does. It's the one good
+instinct, which even the lust of gain doesn't down. It's the tie that
+binds,--the badge of brotherhood which makes the world one." He gently
+laid his hand on the broad shoulder beside him.
+
+"Don't be ashamed to say you love children, boy, though the rest of
+the world laugh,--for they're laughing at a lie. They'll tell you the
+parental instinct is dying out with the advance of civilization; that
+the time will come when man will educate himself to his own
+extinction. It's false, I tell you, absolutely false." Ichabod had
+forgotten himself, and he rushed on, far above the head of the gaping
+Swede.
+
+"There's one instinct in the world, the instinct of parenthood,
+which advances eternal, stronger, infinitely, as man's mind grows
+stronger. So unvarying the rule that it's almost an index of
+civilization itself, advancing from a crude instinct of the
+body-base and animal--until it reaches the realm of the mind: the
+highest, the holiest of man's desires: yet stronger immeasurably, as
+with the educated, things of the mind are stronger than things of
+the body. Those who deny this are fools, or imposters,--I know not
+which. To do so is to strike at the very foundation of human
+nature,--but impotently,--for in fundamentals, human nature is
+good." Unconsciously, a smile flashed over the long face.
+
+"Talk about depopulating the earth! All the wars of primitive man were
+inadequate. The vices of civilization have likewise failed. Even man's
+mightiest weapon, legislation, couldn't stay the tide for a moment, if
+it would. While man is man, and woman is woman, that long, above
+government, religion,--life and death itself,--will reign supreme the
+eternal instinct of parenthood."
+
+Ichabod caught himself in his own period and stopped, a little ashamed
+of his earnestness. He sat up in the seat preparatory to returning to
+his own wagon, then dropped his hand once more on the boy's shoulder.
+
+"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.
+
+[Illustration: "You'll apologize."]
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes." I am lighting up stolidly, although my nerves are atingle.
+
+"We're going to hit it right, just right. The flight's on. I heard
+them going over all night. The lake will be black with the big
+fellows, the Canada boys."
+
+"Yes," I repeat; then conscience gives a last dig. "I ought not to do
+it, though. I didn't have time to break a single engagement"--I'm a
+dental surgeon, too, by the way, with likewise an office of tile and
+enamel--"or explain at all. And the muss there'll be at the shop
+when--"
+
+"Forget it, you confounded old dollar-grubber!" A fresh torrent of
+smoke belches forth, so that I see Sandford's face but dimly through
+the haze. "If you mention teeth again, until we're back--merely
+mention them--I'll throttle you!"
+
+The train is in motion now, and the arc-lights at the corners,
+enshrouded each by a zone of mist, are flitting by.
+
+"Yes," he repeats, and again his voice has that minor strain of
+suppressed excitement, "we're hitting it just right. There'll be rain,
+or a flurry of snow, maybe, and the paddle feet will be down in the
+clouds."
+
+
+CHAPTER VI--"MARK THE RIGHT, SANDFORD!"
+
+
+And they are. Almost before we have stumbled off at the deserted
+station into the surrounding darkness, Johnson's familiar bass is
+heralding the fact.
+
+"Millions of 'em, boys," he assures us, "billions! Couldn't sleep last
+night for the racket they made on the lake. Never saw anything like it
+in the twenty years I've lived on the bank. You sure have struck it
+this time. Right this way," he is staggering under the load of our
+paraphernalia; "rig's all ready and Molly's got the kettle on at home,
+waiting breakfast for you.... Just as fat as you were last year, ain't
+ye?" a time-proven joke, for I weigh one hundred and eight pounds.
+"Try to pull you out, though; try to." And his great laugh drowns the
+roar of the retreating train.
+
+At another time, that five-mile drive in the denser darkness, just
+preceding dawn, would have been long perhaps, the springs of that
+antiquated buckboard inadequate, the chill of that damp October air
+piercing; but now--we notice nothing, feel nothing uncomfortable. My
+teeth chatter a bit now and then, when I am off guard, to be sure; but
+it is not from cold, and the vehicle might be a Pullman coach for
+aught I am conscious.
+
+For we have reached the border of the marsh, now, and are skirting its
+edge, and--Yes, those are ducks, really; that black mass, packed into
+the cove at the lee of those clustering rushes, protected from the
+wind, the whole just distinguishable from the lighter shadow of the
+water: ducks and brant; dots of white, like the first scattered
+snowflakes on a sooty city roof!
+
+"Mark the right, Sandford," I whisper in oblivion. "Mark the right!"
+
+And, breaking the spell, Johnson laughs.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII--THE BACON WHAT AM!
+
+
+When is bacon bacon, and eggs eggs? When is coffee coffee, and the
+despised pickerel, fresh from the cold water of the shaded lake, a
+glorious brown food, fit for the gods?
+
+Answer, while Molly (whose real name is Aunt Martha) serves them to
+us, forty-five minutes later.
+
+Oh, if we only had time to eat, as that breakfast deserves to be
+eaten! If we only had time!
+
+But we haven't; no; Sandford says so, in a voice that leaves no room
+for argument. The sky is beginning to redden in the east; the surface
+of the water reflects the glow, like a mirror; and, seen through the
+tiny-paned windows, black specks, singly and in groups, appear and
+disappear, in shifting patterns, against the lightening background.
+
+"No more now, Aunt Martha--no. Wait until noon; just wait--and _then_
+watch us! Ready, Ed?"
+
+"Waiting for you, Sam." It's been a year since I called him by his
+Christian name; but I never notice, nor does he. "All ready."
+
+"Better try the point this morning; don't you think, Johnson?"
+
+"Yes, if you've your eye with ye. Won't wait while y' sprinkle salt on
+their tails, them red-heads and canvas boys. No, sir-ree."
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII--FEATHERED BULLETS
+
+
+The breath of us is whistling through our nostrils, like the muffled
+exhaust of a gasoline engine, and our hearts are thumping two-steps on
+our ribs from the exertion, when we reach the end of the rock-bestrewn
+point which, like a long index finger, is thrust out into the bosom of
+the lake. The wind, still dead north, and laden with tiny drops of
+moisture, like spray from a giant atomizer, buffets us steadily; but
+thereof we are sublimely unconscious.
+
+For at last we are there, there; precisely where we were yesterday--no,
+a year ago--and the light is strong enough now, so that when our
+gun-barrels stand out against the sky, we can see the sights, and--
+
+Down! Down, behind the nearest stunted willow tree; behind
+anything--quick!--for they're coming: a great dim wedge, with the apex
+toward us, coming swiftly on wings that propel two miles to the
+minute, when backed by a wind that makes a mile in one.
+
+Coming--no; arrived. Fair overhead are the white of breasts, of plump
+bodies flashing through the mist, the swishing hiss of many wings
+cutting the air, the rhythmic _pat_, _pat_--"_Bang!_ _Bang!_"
+
+Was it Sandford's gun, or was it mine? Who knows? The reports were
+simultaneous.
+
+And then--_splash!_ and a second later,--_splash!_ as two dots leave
+the hurtling wedge and, with folded wings, pitch at an angle,
+following their own momentum, against the dull brown surface of the
+rippling water.
+
+Through the intervening branches and dead sunflower stalks, I look at
+Sandford--to find that Sandford is looking at me.
+
+"Good work, old man!" I say, and notice that my voice is a little
+higher than normal.
+
+"Good work, yourself,"--generously. "I missed clean, both barrels. Do
+better next time, though, perhaps.... _Down!_ Mark north! Take the
+leader, you."
+
+From out the mist, dead ahead, just skimming the surface of the water,
+and coming straight at us, like a mathematically arranged triangle of
+cannon balls, taking definite form and magnitude oh, so swiftly,
+unbelievably swift; coming--yes--directly overhead, as before, the
+pulsing, echoing din in our ears.
+
+"_Ready!_"
+
+Again the four reports that sounded as two; and they are past; no
+longer a regular formation, but scattered erratically by the alarm,
+individual vanishing and dissolving dots, speedily swallowed up by the
+gray of the mist.
+
+But this time there was no echoing splash, as a hurtling body struck
+the water, nor tense spoken word of congratulation following--nothing.
+For ten seconds, which is long under the circumstances, not a word is
+spoken; only the metallic click of opened locks, as they spring home,
+breaks the steady purr of the wind; then:
+
+"Safe from me when they come like that," admits Sandford, "unless I
+have a ten-foot pole, and they happen to run into it."
+
+"And from me," I echo.
+
+"Lord, how they come! They just simply materialize before your eyes,
+like an impression by flash-light; and then--vanish."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Seems as though they'd take fire, like meteorites, from the
+friction."
+
+"I'm looking for the smoke, myself--_Down!_ Mark your left!"
+
+_Pat!_ _pat!_ _pat!_ Swifter than spoken words, swift as the strokes
+of an electric fan, the wings beat the air. _Swish-h-h!_ long-drawn
+out, _crescendo_, yet _crescendo_ as, razor-keen, irresistible, those
+same invisible wings cut it through and through; while, answering the
+primitive challenge, responding to the stimulus of the game, the hot
+tingle of excitement speeds up and down our spines. Nearer, nearer,
+mounting, perpendicular--
+
+The third battalion of that seemingly inexhaustible army has come and
+gone; and, mechanically, we are thrusting fresh shells into the
+faintly smoking gun-barrels.
+
+"Got mine that time, both of them." No repression, nor polite
+self-abnegation from Sandford this time; just plain, frank exultation
+and pride of achievement. "Led 'em a yard--two, maybe; but I got 'em
+clean. Did you see?"
+
+"Yes, good work," I echo in the formula.
+
+"Canvas-backs, every one; nothing but canvas-backs." Again the old
+marvel, the old palliation that makes the seemingly unequal game fair.
+"But, Lord, how they do go; how anything alive can go so--and be
+stopped!"
+
+"Mark to windward! Straight ahead! _Down!_"
+
+
+CHAPTER IX--OBLIVION
+
+
+This, the morning. Then, almost before we mark the change, swift-passing
+time has moved on; the lowering mist has lifted; the occasional
+pattering rain-drops have ceased; the wind, in sympathy, is diminished.
+And of a sudden, arousing us to a consciousness of time and place, the
+sun peeps forth through a rift in the scattering clouds, and at a
+point a bit south of the zenith.
+
+"Noon!" comments Sandford, intensely surprised. Somehow, we are always
+astonished that noon should follow so swiftly upon sunrise. "Well, who
+would have thought it!"
+
+That instant I am conscious, for the first time, of a certain violent
+aching void making insistent demand.
+
+"I wouldn't have done so before, but now that you mention it, I do
+think it emphatically." This is a pitiful effort at a jest, but it
+passes unpunished. "There comes Johnson to bring in the birds."
+
+After dinner--and oh, what a dinner! for, having adequate time to do
+it justice, we drag it on and on, until even Aunt Martha is
+satisfied--we curl up in the sunshine, undimmed and gloriously warm;
+we light our briers, and, too lazily, nervelessly content to even
+talk, lay looking out over the blue water that melts and merges in the
+distance with the bluer sky above. After a bit, our pipes burn
+dead and our eyelids drop, and with a last memory of sunlight
+dancing on a myriad tiny wavelets, and a blessed peace and abandon
+soaking into our very souls we doze, then sleep, sleep as we never
+sleep in the city; as we had fancied a short day before never to
+sleep again; dreamlessly, childishly, as Mother Nature intended her
+children to sleep.
+
+Then, from without the pale of utter oblivion, a familiar voice breaks
+slowly upon our consciousness: the voice of Johnson, the vigilant.
+
+"Got your blind all built, boys, and the decoys is out--four dozen of
+them," he admonishes, sympathetically. "Days are getting short, now,
+so you'd better move lively, if you get your limit before dark."
+
+
+CHAPTER X--UPON "WIPING THE EYE"
+
+
+"To poets and epicures, perhaps, the lordly canvas-back--though brown
+from the oven, I challenge the supercilious _gourmet_ to distinguish
+between his favorite, and a fat American coot. But for me the
+loud-voiced mallard, with his bottle-green head and audaciously
+curling tail; for he will decoy."
+
+I am quoting Sandford. Be that as it may, we are there, amid
+frost-browned rushes that rustle softly in the wind: a patch of
+shallow open water, perhaps an acre in extent, to the leeward of us,
+where the decoys, heading all to windward, bob gently with the slight
+swell.
+
+"Now this is something like sport," adds my companion, settling back
+comfortably in the slough-grass blind, built high to the north to cut
+out the wind, and low to the south to let in the sun. "On the point,
+there, this morning you scored on me, I admit it; but this is where I
+shine: real shooting; one, or a pair at most, at a time; no
+scratches; no excuses. Lead on, MacDuff, and if you miss, all's fair
+to the second gun."
+
+"All right, Sam."
+
+"No small birds, either, understand: no teal, or widgeon, or
+shovellers. This is a mallard hole. Nothing but mallards goes."
+
+"All right, Sam."
+
+"Now is your chance, then.... _Now!_"
+
+He's right. Now is my chance, indeed.
+
+Over the sea of rushes, straight toward us, is coming a pair, a single
+pair; and, yes, they are unmistakably mallards. It is feeding time, or
+resting time, and they are flying lazily, long necks extended,
+searching here and there for the promised lands. Our guns indubitably
+cover it; and though I freeze still and motionless, my nerves stretch
+tight in anticipation, until they tingle all but painfully.
+
+On the great birds come; on and still on, until in another second--
+
+That instant they see the decoys, and, warned simultaneously by an
+ancestral suspicion, they swing outward in a great circle, without
+apparent effort on their part, to reconnoitre.
+
+Though I do not stir, I hear the _pat!_ _pat!_ of their wings, as they
+pass by at the side, just out of gunshot. Then, _pat!_ _pat!_ back of
+me, then, _pat!_ _pat!_ on the other side, until once again I see
+them, from the tail of my eye, merge into view ahead.
+
+All is well--very well--and, suspicions wholly allayed at last, they
+whirl for the second oncoming; just above the rushes, now; wings
+spread wide and motionless; sailing nearer, nearer--
+
+"_Now!_" whispers Sandford, "_now!_"
+
+Out of our nest suddenly peeps my gun barrel; and, simultaneously, the
+wings, a second before motionless, begin to beat the air in frantic
+retreat.
+
+But it is too late.
+
+_Bang!_ What! not a feather drops?... _Bang!_ Quack! Quack! _Bang!_
+_Bang!_... Splash!... Quack! Quack! Quack!
+
+That is the story--all except for Sandford's derisive laugh.
+
+"What'd I tell you?" he exults. "Wiped your eye for you that time,
+didn't I?"
+
+"How in the world I missed--" It is all that I can say. "They looked
+as big as--as suspended tubs."
+
+"Buck-fever," explains Sandford, laconically.
+
+"That's all right." I feel my fighting-blood rising, and I swear with
+a mighty wordless oath that I'll be avenged for that laugh. "The day
+is young yet. If, before night, I don't wipe both your eyes, and wipe
+them good--"
+
+"I know you will, old man." Sandford is smiling understandingly, and
+in a flash I return the smile with equal understanding. "And when you
+do, laugh at me, laugh long and loud."
+
+
+CHAPTER XI--THE COLD GRAY DAWN
+
+
+At a quarter of twelve o'clock a week later, I slip out of my office
+sheepishly, and, walking a half-block, take the elevator to the fifth
+floor of the Exchange Building, on the corner. The white enamel of
+Sandford's tiny box of an office glistens, as I enter the door, and
+the tiling looks fresh and clean, as though scrubbed an hour before.
+
+"Doctor's back in the laboratory," smiles the white-uniformed
+attendant, as she grasps my identity.
+
+On a tall stool, beside the laboratory lathe, sits Sandford, hard at
+work. He acknowledges my presence with a nod--and that is all.
+
+"Noon, Sandford," I announce.
+
+"Is it?" laconically.
+
+"Thought I'd drop over to the club for lunch, and a little smoke
+afterward. Want to go along?"
+
+"Can't." The whirr of the electric lathe never ceases. "Got to finish
+this bridge before one o'clock. Sorry, old man."
+
+"Harry just 'phoned and asked me to come and bring you." I throw the
+bait with studied nicety. "He's getting up a party to go out to
+Johnson's, and wants to talk things over a bit in advance."
+
+"Harry!" Irony fairly drips from the voice. "He's always going
+somewhere. Mustn't have much else to do. Anyway, can't possibly meet
+him this noon."
+
+"To-night, then." I suggest tentatively. "He can wait until then, I'm
+sure."
+
+"Got to work to-night, too. Things are all piled up on me." Sandford
+applies a fresh layer of pumice to the swiftly moving polishing wheel,
+with practised accuracy. "Tell Harry I'm sorry; but business is
+business, you know."
+
+"_Purr-r-r!_" drones on the lathe, "_purr-r-r!_" I hear it as I
+silently slip away.
+
+Yes, Sandford is sane; and will be for fifty-one weeks.
+
+
+
+
+A FRONTIER ROMANCE: A TALE OF JUMEL MANSION
+
+
+I
+
+
+A new settlement in a new country: no contemporary mind can conceive
+the possibilities of future greatness that lie in the fulfilment of
+its prophecy.
+
+A long, irregular quadrangle has been hewn from the woods bordering
+the north bank of the Ohio River. Scattered through the clearing are
+rude houses, built of the forest logs. Bounding the space upon three
+sides, and so close that its storm music sounds plain in every ear, is
+the forest itself. On the fourth side flows the wide river, covered
+now, firm and silent, with a thick ice blanket. Across the river on
+the Kentucky shore, softened by the blue haze of distance, another
+forest crowds down to the very water's edge.
+
+It is night, and of the cabins in the clearing each reflects, in one
+way or another, the character of its builder. Here a broad pencil of
+light writes "Careless!" on the black sheet of the forest; there a
+mere thread escaping tells of patient carpentry.
+
+At one end of the clearing, so near the forest that the top of a
+falling tree would have touched it, stood a cabin, individual in its
+complete darkness except for a dull ruddy glow at one end, where a
+window extended as high as the eaves. An open fire within gnawed at
+the half-green logs, sending smoke and steam up the cavernous chimney,
+and casting about the room an uncertain, fitful light--now bright,
+again shadowy.
+
+It was a bare room that the flickering firelight revealed, bare alike
+as to its furnishings and the freshness of its peeled logs, the spaces
+between which had been "chinked" with clay from the river-bank.
+Scarcely a thing built of man was in sight which had not been designed
+to kill; scarcely a product of Nature which had not been gathered at
+cost of animal life. Guns of English make, stretched horizontally
+along the walls upon pegs driven into the logs; in the end opposite
+the wide fireplace, home-made cooking utensils dangled from the end
+of a rough table, itself a product of the same factory. In front of
+the fire, just beyond the blaze and the coals and ashes, were heaped
+the pelts of various animals; black bear and cinnamon rested side by
+side with the rough, shaggy fur of the buffalo, brought by Indians
+from the far western land of the Dakotas.
+
+Upon the heap, dressed in the picturesque utility garb of buckskin,
+homespun, and "hickory" which stamped the pioneer of his day, a big
+man lay at full length: a large man even here, where the law of the
+fittest reigned supreme. A stubbly growth of beard covered his face,
+giving it the heavy expression common to those accustomed to silent
+places, and dim forest trails.
+
+Aside from his size, there was nothing striking or handsome about this
+backwoods giant, neither of face nor of form; yet, sleeping or waking,
+working or at leisure, he would be noticed--and remembered. In his
+every feature, every action, was the absolute unconsciousness of self,
+which cannot be mistaken; whether active or passive, there was about
+him an insinuation of reserve force, subtly felt, of a strong,
+determined character, impossible to sway or bend. He lay, now,
+motionless, staring with wide-open eyes into the fire and breathing
+slowly, deeply, like one in sleep.
+
+There was a hammering upon the door; another, louder; then a rattling
+that made the walls vibrate.
+
+"Come!" called the man, rousing and rolling away from the fire.
+
+A heavy shoulder struck the door hard, and the screaming wooden hinges
+covered the sound of the entering footfall.
+
+He who came was also of the type: homespun and buckskin, hair long and
+face unshaven. He straightened from a passage which was not low, then
+turning pushed the unwieldy door shut. It closed reluctantly, with a
+loud shrilling of its frost-bound hinges and frame. In a moment he
+dropped his hands and impatiently kicked the stubborn offender home,
+the suction drawing a puff of smoke from the fireplace into the room,
+and sending the ashes spinning in miniature whirlwinds upon the
+hearth.
+
+The man on the floor contemplated the entry with indifference; but a
+new light entered his eyes as he recognized his visitor, though his
+face held like wood.
+
+"Evenin', Clayton," he greeted, nodding toward a stool by the hearth.
+"Come over 'n sit down to the entertainment." A whimsical smile
+struggled through the heavy whiskers. "I've been seeing all sorts of
+things in there"--a thoughtful nod toward the fire. "Guess, though, a
+fellow generally does see what he's looking for in this world."
+
+"See here, Bud," the visitor bluntly broke in, coming into the light
+and slurring a dialect of no nationality pure, "y' can't stop me
+thataway. There ain't no use talkin' about the weather, neither." A
+motion of impatience; then swifter, with a shade of menace:
+
+"You know what I came over fer. It's actin' the fool, I know, we few
+families out here weeks away from ev'rybody, but this clearin' can't
+hold us both."
+
+The menace suddenly left the voice, unconsciously giving place to a
+note of tenderness and of vague self-fear.
+
+"I love that girl better 'n you er life er anything else, Bud; I tell
+ye this square to yer face. I can't stand it. I followed ye last night
+clean home from the party--an' I had a knife. I jest couldn't help it.
+Every time I know nex' time it'll happen. I don't ask ye to give her
+up, Bud, but to settle it with me now, fair an' open, 'fore I do
+something I can't help."
+
+He strode swiftly to and fro across the room as he spoke, his
+skin-shod feet tapping muffled upon the bare floor, like the pads of
+an animal. The fur of his leggings, rubbing together as he walked,
+generated static sparks which snapped audibly. He halted presently by
+the fireplace, and looked down at the man lying there.
+
+"It's 'tween us, Bud," he said, passion quivering in his voice.
+
+Minutes passed before Bud Ellis spoke, then he shifted his head,
+quickly, and for the first time squarely met Clayton's eyes.
+
+"You say it's between you and me," he initiated slowly: "how do you
+propose to settle it?"
+
+The other man hesitated, then his face grew red.
+
+"Ye make it hard for me, Bud, 's though I was a boy talkin' to ye big
+here; but it's true, as I told ye: I ain't myself when I see ye
+settin' close to 'Liz'beth, er dancin' with your arm touchin' hern. I
+ain't no coward, Bud; an' I can't give her up--to you ner nobody
+else.
+
+"I hate it. We've always been like brothers afore, an' it 'pears
+kinder dreamy 'n foolish 'n unnatural us settin' here talkin' 'bout
+it; but there ain't no other way I can see. I give ye yer choice, Bud:
+I'll fight ye fair any way y' want."
+
+Ellis's attitude remained unchanged: one big hand supported his chin
+while he gazed silently into the fire. Clayton stood contemplating him
+a moment, then sat down.
+
+By and by Ellis's head moved a little, a very little, and their eyes
+again met. A minute passed, and in those seconds the civilization of
+each man moved back generations.
+
+The strain was beyond Clayton; he bounded to his feet with a motion
+that sent the stool spinning.
+
+"God A'mighty! Are y' wood er are y' a coward? Y' seem to think I'm
+practisin' speech-makin'. D'ye know what it means fer me to come up
+here like this to you?" He waited, but there was no response.
+
+"I tell ye fer the last time, I love that girl, an' if it warn't fer
+you--fer you, Bud Ellis--she'd marry me. Can ye understand that? Now
+will ye fight?--or won't ye?"
+
+A movement, swift and easy, like a released spring, the unconscious
+trick of a born athlete, and Ellis was upon his feet. Involuntarily,
+Clayton squared himself, as if an attack were imminent.
+
+"No, I won't fight you," said the big man, slowly. Without the least
+hesitation, he advanced and laid a hand upon the other man's shoulder,
+facing him at arm's length and speaking deliberately.
+
+"It isn't that I'm afraid of you, either, Bert Clayton; you know
+it. You say you love her; I believe you. I love her, too. And
+Elizabeth--you have tried, and I have tried--and she told us both
+the same.
+
+"God, man! I know how you feel. I've expected something like this a
+long time." He drew his hand across his eyes, and turned away. "I've
+had murder in my heart when I saw you, and hated myself. It's only in
+such places as this, where nothing happens to divert one's mind, that
+people get like you and me, Bert. We brood and brood, and it's love
+and insanity and a good deal of the animal mixed. Yes, you're right.
+It's between you and me, Bert,--but not to fight. One of us has got to
+leave--"
+
+"It won't be me," Clayton quickly broke in. "I tell ye, I'd rather
+die, than leave."
+
+For a full minute Ellis steadily returned the other man's fiery look,
+then went on as though there had been no interruption:
+
+"--and the sooner we go the better. How do you want to settle
+it--shall we draw straws?"
+
+"No, we'll not draw straws. Go ef you're afraid; but I won't stir a
+step. I came to warn ye, or to fight ye if y' wanted. Seein' y'
+won't--good-night."
+
+Ellis stepped quickly in front of the door, and with the motion
+Clayton's hand went to his knife.
+
+"Sit down, man," demanded Ellis, sternly. "We're not savages. Let's
+settle this matter in civilized fashion."
+
+They confronted each other for a moment, the muscles of Clayton's face
+twitching an accompaniment to the nervous fingering of the buckhorn
+hilt; then he stepped up until they could have touched.
+
+"What d' y' mean anyway?" he blazed. "Get out o' my road."
+
+Ellis leaned against the door-bar without a word. The fire had burned
+down, and in the shadow his face had again the same expression of
+heaviness. The breathing of Clayton, swift and short, like one who
+struggles physically, painfully intensified the silence of that dimly
+lighted, log-bound room.
+
+With his right hand Clayton drew his knife; he laid his left on the
+broad half-circle of wood that answered as a door handle.
+
+"Open that door," he demanded huskily, "or by God, I'll stab ye!"
+
+In the half-light the men faced each other, so near their breaths
+mingled. Twice Clayton tried to strike. The eyes of the other man held
+him powerless, and to save his life--even to satisfy a new, fierce
+hate--he could not stir. He stood a moment thus, then an animal-like
+frenzy, irresistible but impotent, seized him. He darted his head
+forward and spat in the heavy face so close to his own.
+
+The unspeakable contempt of the insult shattered Bud Ellis's
+self-control. Prompted by blind fury, the great fist of the man shot
+out, hammer-like, and Clayton crumpled at his feet. It was a blow that
+would have felled the proverbial ox; it was the counterpart of many
+other blows, plus berserker rage, that had split pine boards for sheer
+joy in the ability to do so. These thoughts came sluggishly to the
+inflamed brain, and Ellis all at once dropped to his knees beside the
+limp, prostrate figure.
+
+He bent over Clayton, he who had once been his friend. He was scarcely
+apprehensive at first, and he called his name brusquely; then, as grim
+conviction grew, his appeals became frantic.
+
+At last Ellis shrank away from the Thing upon the floor. He stared
+until his eyeballs burnt like fire. It would never, while time lasted,
+move again.
+
+Horror unutterable fell upon him.
+
+
+II
+
+
+In the year 1807 there were confined in a common Western jail, amid a
+swarm of wretches of every degree of baseness, two men as unlike as
+storm and sunshine. One was charged with treason, the other with
+murder; conviction, in either case, meant death.
+
+One was a man of middle age, an aristocrat born; a college graduate
+and a son of a college graduate; a man handsome of appearance,
+passionate and ambitious, who knew men's natures as he knew their
+names. He had fought bravely for his country, and his counsels had
+helped mould the foundations of the new republic. Honored by his
+fellow-men, he had served brilliantly in such exalted positions as
+that of United States Senator, and Attorney General for the State of
+New York. On one occasion, only a single vote stood between him and
+the presidency.
+
+His name was Aaron Burr.
+
+The other was a big backwoodsman of twenty, whose life had been as
+obscure as that of a domestic animal. He was rough of manner and slow
+of speech, and just now, owing to a combination of physical
+confinement and mental torture altogether unlovely in disposition.
+
+This man was Bud Ellis.
+
+The other prisoners--a motley lot of frontier reprobates--ate
+together, slept together, and quarrelled together. Looking constantly
+for trouble, and thrown into actual contact with an object as
+convenient as Aaron Burr, it was inevitable that he should be made the
+butt of their coarse gibes and foul witticisms; and when these could
+not penetrate his calm, superior self-possession, it was just as
+inevitable that taunts should extend even to worse indignities.
+
+Burr was not the man to be stirred against his calm judgment; but one
+day his passionate nature broke loose, and he and the offender came to
+blows.
+
+There were a dozen prisoners in the single ill-lighted, log-bound
+room, and almost to a man they attacked him. The fight would not have
+lasted long had not the inequality appealed to Ellis on the second.
+
+Moreover, with him, the incident was to the moment opportune. If ever
+a man was in the mood for war, it was the big, square-jawed pioneer.
+He was reckless and desperate for the first time in his life, and he
+joined with Burr against the room, with the abandon of a madman.
+
+For minutes they fought. Elbows and knees, fists and feet, teeth and
+tough-skulled heads; every hard spot and every sharp angle bored and
+jabbed at the crushing mass which swiftly closed them in. They
+struggled like cats against numbers, and held the wall until the sound
+of battle brought the negligent guard running, and the muzzle of a
+carbine peeped through the grating. Burr and Ellis came out with
+scarce a rag and with many bruises, but with the new-born lust of
+battle hot within them. Ellis glowered at the enemy, and having of the
+two the more breath, fired the parting shot.
+
+"How I'd like to take you fellows out, one at a time," he said.
+
+From that day the two men were kept apart from the others, and the
+friendship grew. When Burr chose, neither man nor woman could resist
+him. He chose now and Ellis, by habit and by nature silent, told of
+his life and of his thoughts. It was a new tale to Burr, these dream
+products of a strong man, and of solitude; and so, listening, he
+forgot his own trouble. The hard look that had formed over his face in
+the three years past vanished, leaving him again the natural,
+fascinating man who had first taken the drawing-room of the rare old
+Jumel mansion by storm. It was genuine, this tale that Ellis told; it
+was strong, with the savor of Mother Nature and of wild things, and
+fascinating with the beauty of unconscious telling.
+
+"And the girl?" asked Burr after Ellis finished a passionate account
+of the last year. Unintentionally, he touched flame to tinder.
+
+"Don't ask me about her. I'm not fit. She was coming to see me, but I
+wouldn't let her. She's good and innocent; she never imagined we were
+not as strong as she, and it's killing her. There's no question what
+will happen to me; everything is against me, and I'll be convicted.
+
+"No one understands--she can't herself; but she feels responsible for
+one of us, already, and will feel the same for me when it's over.
+Anyway, I'd never see her again. I feel different toward her now, and
+always would. I'd never live over again days like I have in the past
+year: days I hated a friend I'd known all my life--because we both
+loved the same woman. If the Almighty sent love of woman into the
+world to be bought at the price I paid, it's wrong, and He's made a
+mistake. It's contrary to Nature, because Nature is kind.
+
+"Last summer I'd sit out of doors at night and watch the stars come
+out thick, like old friends, till I'd catch the mood and be content.
+The wind would blow up from the south, softly, like some one fanning
+me, and the frogs and crickets would sing even and sleepy, and I'd
+think of her and be as nearly happy as it was possible for me to be.
+
+"Then, somehow, he'd drift into the picture, and it grated. I'd wonder
+why this love of woman, which ought to make one feel the best of
+everything there is in life; which ought to make one kinder and
+tenderer to every one, should make me hate him, my best friend. The
+night would be spoiled, and from then on the crickets would sing out
+of tune. I'd go to bed, where, instead of sleeping, I would try to
+find out, and couldn't.
+
+"And at last, that night--and the end! Oh, it's horrible, horrible! I
+wish to God they'd try me quick, and end it. It makes me hate that
+girl to think she's the cause. And that makes me hate myself, for I
+know she's innocent. Oh, it's tangled--tangled--"
+
+Of the trial which followed, the world knows. How Burr pleaded his own
+case, and of the brilliancy of the pleading, history makes record at
+length. 'T was said long before, when the name of Burr was proud on
+the Nation's tongue--years before that fatal morning on Weekawken
+Heights--that no judge could decide against him. Though reviled by
+half the nation, it would seem it were yet true.
+
+Another trial followed; but of this history is silent, though Aaron
+Burr pleaded this case as well. It was a trial for manslaughter, and
+every circumstance, even the prisoner's word, declared guilt. To show
+that a person may be guilty in act, and at the same time, in reality,
+innocent, calls for a master mind--the mind of a Burr. To tell of
+passion, one must have felt passion, and of such Burr had known his
+full share. No lawyer for the defence was ever better prepared than
+Burr, and he did his best. In court he told the jury a tale of motive,
+of circumstance, and of primitive love, such as had never been heard
+in that county before; such that the twelve men, without leaving their
+seats, brought a verdict of "Not guilty."
+
+"I can't thank you right," said the big man, with a catch in his
+voice, wringing Burr's hand.
+
+"Don't try," interrupted Burr, quickly. "You did as much for me." And
+even Burr did not attempt to say any more just then.
+
+
+III
+
+
+The two men went East together, travelling days where now hours would
+suffice. Why Burr took the countryman home with him, knowing, as he
+did, the incongruity of such a step, he himself could not have told.
+It puzzled Ellis still more. He had intended going far away to some
+indefinite place; but this opportunity of being virtually thrust into
+the position where he most wished to be, was unusual; it was a
+reversal of all precedent; and so why demur?
+
+[Illustration: The two men went East together.]
+
+On the way, Burr told much of his life--probably more than he had told
+before in years. He knew that the sympathy of Ellis was sincere, and a
+disinterested motive was with him a new thing, a key to confidence.
+
+A woman was at this time, and had been for years, foremost in Burr's
+mind. He was going to see her now; beyond that his plans were dim.
+During a career of politics, there had crept into the man's life much
+that was hard and worldly; but this attachment was from ambition far
+apart--his most sacred thing.
+
+She was a brilliant woman, this friend of Burr's; one whom many
+sought; but it was not this which influenced him. She had been his
+best friend, and had taken him into her own home during the darkest
+hour of his life, when condemnation was everywhere. Gossip had
+fluttered, but to no avail. Burr never forgot a friend, and in this
+case it was more than friendship: it was a genuine love that lasted;
+for years later, in his old age and hers as well, old Jumel mansion
+made gay at their wedding.
+
+"What do you expect to do?" asked Burr of Ellis.
+
+"Anything just now that will make me forget," answered the countryman,
+quickly. "So there's enough of it is all that I ask. I'm going to get
+a little more education first. Sometime I'll study law--that is, if
+I'm here 'sometime.' I've got to be where there's life and action.
+I'll never end by being common." He paused a moment, and on his face
+there formed the peculiar heavy look that had confronted Clayton; a
+mask that hid a determination, which nothing of earth could shake. He
+finished slowly: "I'll either be something, or nothing."
+
+Biographers leave the impression that at this time Burr was devoid of
+prestige on earth. Politically, this is true; but respecting his
+standing with the legal fraternity, it is wholly false. He had
+influence, and he used it, securing the stranger a place in a New York
+office, where his risk depended only upon himself. More than this, he
+gave Ellis money.
+
+"You can pay me any interest you wish," said he when the latter
+protested.
+
+Ellis had been settled a week. One evening he sat in the back room of
+the city office, fighting the demon of homesickness with work, and the
+light of an open fire. It was late, and he had studied till Nature
+rebelled; now he sat in his own peculiar position, gazing into the
+glow, motionless and wide-eyed.
+
+He started at a tap on the door, and the past came back in a rush.
+
+"Come in," he called.
+
+Burr entered, and closed the door carefully behind him. Ellis motioned
+to a chair.
+
+"No, I won't sit down," said Burr. "I'm only going to stay a moment."
+
+He came over to the blaze, looking down on the other man's head.
+Finally he laid a hand on Ellis's shoulder.
+
+"Lonesome, eh?" he inquired.
+
+The student nodded silent assent.
+
+"So am I," said Burr, beginning to pace up and down the narrow room.
+"Do you know," he burst out at last, "this town is like hell to me.
+Every hand is against me. There's not one man here, beside you, whom
+I can trust. I can't stand it. I'm going to leave the country. Some
+day I'll come back; but now it's too much." There was the accumulated
+bitterness of months in his voice. "My God!" he interjected, "you'd
+think these people never did anything wrong in their lives." He
+stopped and laid his hand again on the other man's shoulder.
+
+"But enough of this--I didn't come to make you more lonesome. I want
+you to meet my friends before I go. You'll go out with me to-morrow
+afternoon?"
+
+There was silence for a moment.
+
+"If you wish. You know what I am," said Ellis.
+
+Burr's hand rested a moment longer.
+
+"Good-night," he said simply.
+
+Some eight or ten miles north of the beach, on the island of
+Manhattan, stood Jumel home; a fine, white house, surrounded by a
+splendid lawn and gardens. A generation had already passed since its
+erection, and the city was slowly creeping near. It was a stately
+specimen of Colonial domestic architecture, built on simple, restful
+lines, and distinguished by the noble columns of its Grecian front.
+Destined to be diminished, the grounds had already begun to shrink;
+but from its commanding position it had a view that was magnificent,
+overlooking as it did, the Hudson, the Harlem, the East River, the
+Sound, and upon every side, miles upon miles of undulating land.
+
+On the way, and again upon the grounds, Burr related the history of
+the old landmark, telling much with the fascination of personal
+knowledge. The tale of the Morrises, of Washington and of Mary
+Philipse was yet upon his tongue, as he led Ellis through the broad
+pillared entrance, into the great hall.
+
+Things moved swiftly, very swiftly and very dreamily, to the
+countryman in the next few hours. Nothing but the lack of ability
+prevented his vanishing at the sound of approaching skirts; nothing
+but physical timidity prevented his answering the greeting of the
+hostess; nothing but conscious awkwardness prompted the crude bow that
+answered the courtesy of the girl with the small hands, and the dark
+eyes who accompanied her--the first courtesy from powdered maid of
+fashion that he had ever known. Her name, Mary Philipse, coming so
+soon after Burr's story, staggered him, and, open-mouthed, he stood
+looking at her. Remembrance came to Burr simultaneously, and he
+touched Ellis on the arm.
+
+"Don't worry, my friend," he laughed; "she's not the one."
+
+Ellis grew red to the ears.
+
+"We'll leave you to Mary," said Burr retreating with a smile; "she'll
+tell you the rest--from where I left off."
+
+The girl with the big brown eyes was still smiling in an amused sort
+of way, but Ellis showed no resentment. He knew that to her he was a
+strange animal--very new and very peculiar. He did not do as a lesser
+man would have done, pretend knowledge of things unknown, but looked
+the girl frankly in the eyes.
+
+"Pardon me, but it was all rather sudden," he explained. The red had
+left his face now. "I've only known a few women--and they were not--of
+your class. This is Mr. Burr's joke, not mine."
+
+The smile faded from the girl's face. She met him on his own ground,
+and they were friends.
+
+"Don't take it that way," she protested, quickly. "I see, he's been
+telling you of Washington's Mary Philipse. It merely happens that my
+name is the same. I'm simply a friend visiting here. Can't I show you
+the house? It's rather interesting."
+
+If Ellis was a novelty to the woman, she was equally so to him.
+Unconventionality reigned in that house, and they were together an
+hour. Never before in his life had Ellis learned so much, nor caught
+so many glimpses of things beyond, in an equal length of time. His
+idea of woman had been trite, a little vague. He had no ideal; he had
+simply accepted, without question, the one specimen he had known
+well.
+
+In an uncertain sort of way he had thought of the sex as being
+invariably creatures of unquestioned virtue, but of mind somewhat
+defective; who were to be respected and protected, loved perhaps with
+the love animals know; but of such an one as this he had no
+conception.
+
+Here was a woman, younger than he, whose unconscious familiarity with
+things, which to him lay hidden in the dark land of ignorance,
+affected him like a stimulant. A woman who had read and travelled and
+thought and felt; whose mind met him even in the unhesitating
+confidence of knowledge--it is no wonder that he was in a dream. It
+turned his little world upside down: so brief a time had elapsed since
+he had cursed woman for bringing crime into his life, in the
+narrowness of his ignorance thinking them all alike. He was in the
+presence of a superior, and his own smallness came over him like a
+flood.
+
+He mentally swore, then and there, with a tightening of his jaw that
+meant finality, that he would raise himself to her plane. The girl saw
+the look, and wondered at it.
+
+That night, at parting, the eyes of the two met. A moment passed--and
+another, and neither spoke a word. Then a smile broke over the face of
+Mary Philipse, and it was answered on the face of the man. Equals had
+met equals. At last the girl held out her hand.
+
+"Call again, please," she requested. "Good-night."
+
+Years passed. Burr had gone and returned again, and Jumel mansion had
+waxed festive to honor his home-coming. Then he opened an office in
+the city, and drab-colored routine fell upon him--to remain.
+
+Meanwhile Time had done much for Ellis--rather, it had allowed him to
+do much for himself. He had passed through all the stages of
+transition--confusion, homesickness, despondency; but incentive to do
+was ever with him.
+
+At first he had worked to forget, and, in self-defence; but Nature had
+been kind, and with years memory touched him softly, as though it were
+the past of another.
+
+Then a new incentive came to him: an incentive more potent than the
+former, and which grew so slowly he did not recognize it, until he met
+it unmistakably face to face. Again into his life and against his will
+had crept a woman, and this woman's name was Mary Philipse. He met her
+now on her own ground, but still, as of old, with honors even. She had
+changed little since he first saw her. As often as he called, he met
+the same frank smile, and the brown eyes still regarded him with the
+same old candid, unreserved interest.
+
+Ellis was, as the town would have said, successful. He had risen from
+a man-of-all-work to the State bar, and an office of his own. He had
+passed the decisive line and his rise was simply a question of time.
+He was in a position where he could do as he chose. He appreciated
+that Mary Philipse was the incentive that had put him where he was.
+She appealed to the best there was in his nature. She caused him to do
+better work, to think better thoughts. He unselfishly wished her the
+best there was of life. Just how much more he felt he did not know--at
+least this was sufficient.
+
+He would ask her to marry him. It was not the mad, dazzling passion of
+which poets sing; but he was wiser than of yore. Of Mary he was
+uncertain. That he was not the only man who went often to old Jumel
+mansion he was well aware, and with the determination to learn
+certainties, there came a tenderer regard than he had yet known.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jumel was gay that night. There would be few more such scenes, for the
+owner was no longer young; but of this the throng in brocade and
+broadcloth and powder, who filled the spacious mansion, were
+thoughtless. Everywhere was an atmosphere of welcome; from the steady
+light of lanterns festooned on facade and lawn, to the sparkle of
+countless candles within.
+
+It was that night that Ellis drew Mary Philipse aside and told her the
+tale that grew passionate in the telling. Fortune was kind, for he
+told it to the soft accompaniment of wine glasses ringing, and the
+slow music of the stately minuet.
+
+Mary Philipse heard him through without a word, an expression on her
+face he had never seen before. Then their eyes met in the same frank
+way they had hundreds of times before, and she gave him her answer.
+
+"I've expected this, and I've tried to be ready; but I'm not. I can't
+say no, and I can't say yes. I wouldn't try to explain to any one
+else, but I think you'll understand. Forgive me if I analyze you a
+little, and don't interrupt, please."
+
+She passed her hand over her face slowly, a shade wearily.
+
+"There are times when I come near loving you: for what you are, not
+for what you are to me. You are natural, you're strong; but you lack
+something I feel to be necessary to make life completely happy--the
+ability to forget all and enjoy the moment. I have watched you for
+years. It has been so in the past, and will be so in the future. Other
+men who see me, men born to the plane, have the quality--call it
+butterfly if you will--to enjoy the 'now.' It appeals to me--I am of
+their manner born." Their eyes met and she finished slowly, "It's
+injustice to you, I know; but I can't answer--now."
+
+They sat a moment side by side in silence. The dancers were moving
+more swiftly to the sound of the Virginia reel.
+
+Ellis reached over and took her hand, then bent and touched it softly
+with his lips.
+
+"I will wait--and abide," he said.
+
+
+
+
+THE CUP THAT O'ERFLOWED: AN OUTLINE
+
+
+I
+
+
+In a room, half-lighted by the red rays of a harvest moon, a woman lay
+in the shadow; face downward, on the bed. It was not the figure of
+youth: the full lines of waist and hip spoke maturity. She was sobbing
+aloud and bitterly, so that her whole body trembled.
+
+The clock struck the hour, the half, again the hour; and yet she lay
+there, but quiet, with face turned toward the window and the big, red
+harvest moon. It was not a handsome face; besides, now it was
+tear-stained and hard with the reflection of a bitter battle fought.
+
+A light foot tapped down the hallway and stopped in front of the door.
+There was gentle accompaniment on the panel to the query, "Are you
+asleep?"
+
+The woman on the bed opened her eyes wider, without a word.
+
+The step in the hall tapped away into silence. The firm, round arm in
+its black elbow-sleeve setting, white, beautiful, made a motion of
+impatience and of weariness; then slowly, so slowly that one could
+scarce mark its coming, the blank stupor that comes as Nature's
+panacea to those whom she has tortured to the limit, crept over the
+woman, and the big brown eyes closed. The moon passed over and the
+night-wind, murmuring lower and lower, became still. In the darkness
+and silence the woman sobbed as she slept.
+
+In the lonely, uncertain time between night and morning she awoke; her
+face and the pillow were damp with the tears of sleep. She was numb
+from the drawing of tight clothing, and with a great mental pain and a
+confused sense of sadness, that weighed on her like a tangible thing.
+Her mind groped uncertainly for a moment; then, with a great rush, the
+past night and the things before it returned to her.
+
+"Oh, God, Thy injustice to us women!" she moaned.
+
+The words roused her; and, craving companionship, she rose and lit the
+gas.
+
+Back and forth she crossed the room, avoiding the furniture as by
+instinct--one moment smiling, bitter; the next with face moving,
+uncontrollable, and eyes damp: all the moods, the passions of a
+woman's soul showing here where none other might see. Tired out, at
+last, she stopped and disrobed, swiftly, without a glance at her own
+reflection, and returned to bed.
+
+Nature will not be forced. Sleep will not come again. She can only
+think, and thoughts are madness. She gets up and moves to her desk.
+Aimlessly at first, as a respite, she begins to write. Her thoughts
+take words as she writes, and a great determination, an impulse of the
+moment, comes to her. She takes up fresh paper and writes sheet after
+sheet, swiftly. Passion sways the hand that writes, and shines warmly
+from the big, brown eyes. The first light of morning stains the east
+as she collects the scattered sheets, and writes a name on the
+envelope, a name which brings a tenderness to her eyes. Stealthily she
+tiptoes down the stairs and places the letter where the servant will
+see, and mail it in the early morning. A glad light, the light of
+relief, is in her face as she steals back slowly and creeps into bed.
+
+"If it is wrong I couldn't help it," she whispers low. She turns her
+face to the pillow and covers it with a soft, white arm. One ear alone
+shows, a rosy spot against the white.
+
+
+II
+
+
+Nine o'clock at a down-town medical office. A man who walks rapidly,
+but quietly, enters and takes up the morning mail. A number of
+business letters he finds and a dainty envelope, with writing which he
+knows at sight. He steps to the light and looks at the postmark.
+
+"Good-morning," says his partner, entering.
+
+The man nods absently, and, tearing open the envelope, takes out this
+letter:
+
+  "MY FRIEND:--
+
+  "I don't know what you will think of me after this; anyway, I
+  cannot help telling you what to-night lies heavy on my heart and
+  mind. I've tried to keep still; God knows I've tried, and so
+  hard; but Nature is Nature, and I am a woman. Oh, if you men
+  only knew what that means, you'd forgive us much, and pity! You
+  have so much in life and we so little, and you torture us so
+  with that little, which to us is so great, our all; leading us
+  on against our will, against our better judgment, until we love
+  you, not realizing at first the madness of unrequited love. Oh,
+  the cruelty of it, and but for a pastime.
+
+  "But I do not mean to charge you. You are not as other men; you
+  are not wrong. Besides, why should I not say it? I love you.
+  Yes, you; a man who knows not the meaning of the word; who meant
+  to be but a friend, my best friend. Oh, you have been blind,
+  blind all the years since first I knew you; since first you
+  began telling me of yourself and of your hopes. You did not know
+  what it meant to such as I to live in the ambition of another,
+  to hope through another's hope, to exult in another's success. I
+  am confessing, for the first time--and the last time. Know, man,
+  all the time I loved you. Forgive me that I tell you. I cannot
+  help it. I am a woman, and love in a woman's life is stronger
+  than will, stronger than all else together.
+
+  "I ask nothing. I expect nothing. I could not keep quiet longer.
+  It was killing me, and you never saw. I did not mean to tell you
+  anything, till this moment--least of all, in this way. But it is
+  done, and I'm glad--yes, happier than I have been for weeks. It
+  is our woman's nature; a nature we do not ourselves understand.
+
+  "My friend, I cannot see you again. Things cannot go on as they
+  were. It was torture--you know not what torture--and life is
+  short. If you would be kind, avoid me. The town is wide, and we
+  have each our work. Time will pass. Remember, you have done
+  nothing wrong. If there be one at fault it is Nature, for only
+  half doing her work. You are good and noble. Good-bye. I trust
+  you, for, God bless you, I love you."
+
+The letter dropped, and the man stood looking out with unseeing eyes,
+on the shifting street.
+
+A patient came in and sat down, waiting.
+
+He had read as in a dream. Now with a rush came thought,--the past,
+the present, mingled; and as by a great light he saw clearly the years
+of comradery, thoughtless on his part, filled as his life had been
+with work and with thought of the future. It all came home to him now,
+and the coming was of brightness. The coldness melted from his face;
+the very squareness of the jaw seemed softer; the knowledge that is
+joy and that comes but once in a lifetime, swept over him, warm, and
+his heart beat swift. All things seemed beautiful.
+
+Without a word he took up his hat, and walked rapidly toward the
+elevator. A smile was in the frank blue eyes, and to all whom he met,
+whether stranger or friend, he gave greeting.
+
+The patient, waiting for his return, grew tired and left, and leaving,
+slammed the office door behind him.
+
+
+
+
+UNJUDGED
+
+
+The source of this manuscript lies in tragedy. My possession of it is
+purely adventitious. That I have had it long you may know, for it came
+to me at an inland prairie town, far removed from water or mountain,
+while for ten years or more my name, above the big-lettered dentist
+sign, has stood here on my office window in this city by the lake. I
+have waited, hoping some one would come as claimant; but my hair is
+turning white and I can wait no longer. As now I write of the past,
+the time of the manuscript's coming stands clear amid a host of hazy,
+half-forgotten things.
+
+It was after regular hours, of the day I write, that a man came
+hurriedly into my office, complaining of a fiercely aching tooth.
+Against my advice he insisted on an immediate extraction, and the use
+of an anaesthetic. I telephoned for a physician, and while awaiting his
+coming my patient placed in my keeping an expansible leather-covered
+book of a large pocket size.
+
+"Should anything go wrong," he said, "there are instructions inside."
+
+The request is common from those unused to an operation, and I
+accepted without other comment than to assure him he need fear no
+danger.
+
+Upon arriving, the physician made the customary examination and
+proceeded to administer chloroform. The patient was visibly excited,
+but neither of us attached any importance to that under the
+circumstances. Almost before the effect of the anaesthetic was
+noticeable, however, there began a series of violent muscular spasms
+and contractions. The inhaler was removed and all restoratives known
+to the profession used, but without avail. He died in a few moments,
+and without regaining consciousness. The symptoms were suspicious,
+entirely foreign to any caused by the anaesthetic, and at the inquest
+the cause came to light. In the man's stomach was a large quantity of
+strychnine. That he knew something of medicine is certain, for the
+action of the alkaloid varies little, and he had the timing to a
+nicety.
+
+The man was, I should judge, thirty years of age, smooth of face and
+slightly built. Nerve was in every line of face and body. He was
+faultlessly dressed and perfectly groomed. He wore no jewelry, not
+even a watch; but within the pocket of his vest was found a small
+jewel-case containing two beautiful white diamonds, each of more than
+a carat weight. One was unset, the other mounted in a lady's ring.
+There was money in plenty upon his person, but not an article that
+would give the slightest clue to his identity.
+
+One peculiar thing about him I noticed, and could not account for:
+upon the palm of each hand was a row of irregular abrasions, but
+slightly healed, and which looked as though made by some dull
+instrument.
+
+The book with which he entrusted me had begun as a journal, but with
+the passage of events it had outgrown its original plan. Being
+expansible, fresh sheets had been added as it grew, and at the back of
+the book, on one of these blanks, had been hastily scratched, in
+pencil, the message of which he spoke:
+
+"You will find sufficient money in my pockets to cover all expenses.
+Do not take my trinkets, please! Associations make them dear to me.
+Any attempt to discover my friends will be useless."
+
+Notwithstanding the last sentence the body was embalmed and the death
+advertised; but no response came, and after three days the body and
+the tokens he loved were quietly buried here in the city.
+
+Meantime I had read the book, beginning from a sense of duty that grew
+into a passing interest, and ended by making me unaware of both time
+and place. I give you the journal as it stands, word for word and date
+for date. Would that I could show you the handwriting in the original
+as well. No printed page can tell the story of mood as can the lines
+of this journal. There were moments of passion when words slurred and
+overtook each other, as thought moved more rapidly than the characters
+which recorded; and again, periods of uncertainty when the hand
+tarried and busied itself with forming meaningless figures, while the
+conscious mind roamed far away.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+_March 17._ Why do I begin a journal now, a thing I have never done
+before? Had another asked the question, I could have turned it off
+with a laugh, but with myself it will not do. I must answer it, and
+honestly. Know then, my ego who catechises, I have things to tell,
+feelings to describe that are new to me and which I cannot tell to
+another. The excuse sounds childish; but listen: I speak it softly: I
+love, and he who loves is ever as a child. I smile at myself for
+making the admission. I, a man whose hair is thinning and silvering,
+who has written of love all his life, and laughed at it. Oh, it's
+humorous, deliciously humorous. To think that I have become, in
+reality, the fool I pictured others in fancy!
+
+_April 2._ Gods, she was beautiful to-night!--the way she came to meet
+me: the long skirt that hung so gracefully, and that fluffy, white,
+sleeveless thing that fitted her so perfectly and showed her white
+arms and the curves of her throat. I forgot to rise, and I fear I
+stared at her. I can yet see the smile that crept through the long
+lashes as she looked at me, and as I stumbled an apology she was
+smiling all the time. How I came away I swear I don't know. Instinct,
+I suppose; for now at last I have an incentive. I must work mightily,
+and earn a name--for her.
+
+_April 4._ He says it is a strong plot and that he will help me. That
+means the book will succeed. I wonder how a man feels who can do
+things, not merely dream them. I expected he would laugh when I told
+him the plot, especially when I told whom the woman was; but he didn't
+say a word. He thinks, as I do, that it would be better to leave the
+story's connection with her a surprise until the book is published. He
+is coming up here to work to-morrow. "Keep a plot warm," he says:
+"especially one with a love in it." He looked at me out of the corner
+of his eye as he spoke, so peculiarly I hardly knew whether he was
+laughing at me or not. I suppose, just now, my state of mind is rather
+obvious and amusing.
+
+_May 3._ As I expected, the reaction is on. What a price we have to
+pay for our happy moments in this world! I'm tired to-night and a
+little discouraged, for I worked hard all day, and did not accomplish
+much. "Lack of inspiration," he said. "The heroine is becoming a
+trifle dim. Hadn't you better go and enthuse a little to-night?"
+
+I was not in a mood to be chaffed; I told him shortly: "No, you had
+better go yourself."
+
+He smiled and thanked me. "With your permission," he said, "I will."
+
+Nature certainly has been kind to him, for he is handsome and
+fascinating beyond any man I ever knew. I wanted to use him in the
+story, but he positively refused. He said that I would do better. So
+we finally compromised on a combination. "The man" has his hair and my
+eyes, his nose and my mouth. Over the chin we each smiled a little
+grimly, for it is stubborn--square, and fits us both. After all, it is
+not a bad _ensemble_. The character has his weak points, but, all in
+all, he is not bad to look upon.
+
+_June 10._ We went driving this evening, she and I, far out into the
+country, going and coming slowly. The night was perfect, with a full
+moon and a soft south wind. Nature's music makers were all busy. On
+the high places, the crickets sang loudly their lonesome song to the
+night, while from the distant river and lowlands there came the
+uncertain minor of countless frogs in chorus.
+
+For two hours I tasted happiness, divine happiness, happiness so
+complete that I forgot time.
+
+I have known many beautiful women, women splendid as animals are
+splendid, but never before one whose intense womanliness made me
+forget that she was beautiful. I can't explain; it is too subtle and
+holy a thing. I sat by her side, so near that we touched, and
+worshipped as I never worshipped at church. If but for this night
+alone, my life is worth the living.
+
+_June 12._ It seems peculiar that he should be working with me at this
+story; strange that he should care to know me at all. Perhaps I stand
+a little in awe of the successful man; I think we all do. At least, he
+is the example _par excellence_. I have seen him go into a room filled
+with total strangers, and though he never spoke a word, have heard the
+question all about,--"Who is he?" Years ago, when he as well as I was
+an unknown writer, we each submitted a story to the same editor, by
+the same mail. Both were returned. I can still see the expression on
+his face as he opened his envelope, and thrust the manuscript into his
+pocket. He did not say a word, but his manner of donning his top-coat
+and hat, and the crash of the front door behind him betrayed his
+disappointment. His work was afterwards published at his own risk. The
+ink on my story is fading, but I have it still.
+
+_July 2._ She is going to the coast for the season, and I called
+to-night to say _au revoir_. I could see her only a few minutes as her
+carriage was already waiting; something, I believe, in honor of her
+last night in town. She was in evening dress, and beautiful--I cannot
+describe. Think of the most beautiful woman you have ever known, and
+then--but it is useless, for you have not known her.
+
+I was intoxicated; happy as a boy; happy as a god. I filled the few
+moments I had, full to overflowing. I told her what every man tells
+some woman some time in his life. For once I felt the power of a
+master, and I spoke well.
+
+She did not answer; I asked her not to. I could not tell her all, and
+I would have no reply before. Her face was turned from me as I spoke,
+but her ears turned pink and her breath came quickly. I looked at her
+and the magnitude of my presumption held me dumb; yet a warm happy
+glow was upon me, and the tapping of feet on the pavement below
+sounded as sweetest music.
+
+As I watched her she turned, her eyes glistening and her throat all
+a-tremble. She held out her hand to say good-bye. I took it in mine;
+and at the touch my resolution and all other things of earth were
+forgotten, and I did that which I had come hoping to do. Gently, I
+slipped a ring with a single setting over her finger, then bending
+low, I touched the hand with my lips--whitest, softest, dearest hand
+in God's world. Then I heard her breath break in a sob, and felt upon
+my hair the falling of a tear.
+
+_August 5._ I am homesick to-night and tired. It is ten-thirty, and, I
+have just gotten dinner. I forgot all about it before. The story is
+moving swiftly. It is nearly finished now, moreover it is good; I
+know it. I sent a big roll of manuscript to him to-day. He is at the
+coast, and polishes the rough draft as fast as I send it in. He
+tells me he has secured a publisher, and that the book will be out
+in a few months. I can hardly wait to finish, for then I, too, can
+leave town. I will not go before; I have work to do, and can do it
+better here. He tells me he has seen her several times. God! a man
+who writes novels and can mention her incidentally, as though
+speaking of a dinner-party!
+
+_August 30._ I finished to-day and expressed him the last scrap of
+copy. I wanted to sing, I was so happy. Then I bethought me, it is her
+birthday. I went down town and picked out a stone that pleased me.
+Their messenger will deliver it, and she can choose her own setting.
+How I'd like to carry it myself, but I have a little more work to do
+before I go. Only two more days, and then--
+
+I have been counting the time since she left: almost two months; it
+seems incredible when I think of it.
+
+How I have worked! Next time I write, my journal confessor, I will
+have something to tell: I will have seen her--she who wears my
+ring.... Ah! here comes my man for orders. A few of my bachelor
+friends help me celebrate here to-night. I have not told them it is
+the last time.
+
+_September 5._ Let me think; I am confused. This hotel is vile,
+abominable, but there is no other. That cursed odor of stale tobacco,
+and of cookery!
+
+The landlord says they were here yesterday and went West. It's easy to
+trace them--everybody notices. A tall man, dark, with a firm jaw; the
+most beautiful woman they have ever seen--they all say the same. My
+God! and I'm hung up here, inactive a whole day! But I'll find them,
+they can't escape; and then they'll laugh at me, probably.
+
+What can I do? I don't know. I can't think. I must find them first ...
+that cursed odor again!
+
+Oh, what a child, a worse than fool I have been! To sit there in town
+pouring the best work of my life into his hands! I must have that
+book, I will have it. To think how I trusted her--waited until my hair
+began to turn--for this!
+
+But I must stop. This is useless, it's madness.
+
+_September 9._ It is a beautiful night. I have just come in from a
+long walk, how long I don't know. I went to the suburbs and through
+the parks, watching the young people sitting, two and two, in the
+shadow. I smiled at the sight, for in fancy I could hear what they
+were saying. Then I wandered over to the lakefront and stood a long
+time, with the waves lapping musically against the rocks below, and
+the moonlight glistening on a million reflectors. The great stretch of
+water in front, and the great city behind me sang low in concord,
+while the stars looked down smiling at the refrain. "Be calm, little
+mortal, be calm," they said; "calm, tiny mortal, calm," repeated
+endlessly, until the mood took hold of me, and in sympathy I smiled in
+return.
+
+Was it yesterday? It seems a month since I found them. Was it I who
+was so hot and angry? I hold up my hand; it is as steady as my
+mother's when, years ago, as a boy, she laid it on my forehead with
+her good-night. The murmur of this big hotel speaks soothingly, like
+the voice of an old friend. The purr of the elevator is a voice I
+know. It all seems incredible. To-day is so commonplace and real, and
+yesterday so remote and fantastic.
+
+He was lounging in the lobby, a hand in either pocket, when I touched
+him on the shoulder. He turned, but neither hands nor face failed him
+by a motion.
+
+"I presume you would prefer to talk in private?" I said, "Will you
+come to my room?"
+
+A smile formed slowly over his lips.
+
+"I don't wish to deprive my--" He paused, and his eyes met mine,"--my
+wife of a pleasant chat with an old friend. I would suggest that you
+come with us to our suite."
+
+I nodded. In silence we went up the elevator; in equal silence, he
+leading, we passed along the corridor over carpets that gave out no
+telltale sound.
+
+She was standing by the window when we entered. Her profile stood out
+clear in the shaded room, and in spite of myself a great heart-throb
+passed over me. She did not move at first, but at last turning she saw
+him and me. Then I could see her tremble; she started quickly to
+leave, but he barred the way. The smile was still upon his face.
+
+"Pardon me, my dear," he protested, "but certainly you recognize an
+old friend."
+
+She grew white to the lips, and her eyes blazed. Her hands pressed
+together so tightly that the fingers became blue at the nails. She
+looked at him; such scorn I had never seen before. Before it, the
+smile slowly left his face.
+
+"Were you the fraction of a man," she voiced slowly, icily, "you would
+have stopped short of--this."
+
+She made a motion of her hand, so slight one could scarce see it,
+and without a word he stepped aside. She turned toward me and,
+instinctively, I bent in courtesy, my eyes on the floor and a great
+tumult in my heart. She hesitated at passing me; without looking
+up I knew it; then, slowly, moved away down the corridor.
+
+I advanced inside, closing the door behind me and snapping the lock.
+Neither of us said a word; no word was needed. The fighting-blood of
+each was up, and on each the square jaw that marked us both was set
+hard. I stepped up within a yard of him and looked him square in the
+eye. I pray God I may never be so angry again.
+
+"What explanation have you to offer?" I asked.
+
+His eye never wavered, though the blood left his face and lip; even
+then I admired his nerve. When he spoke his voice was even and
+natural.
+
+"Nothing," he sneered. "You have lost; that's all."
+
+Quick as thought, I threw back the taunt.
+
+"Lost the woman, yes, thank God; the book, never. I came for that, not
+for her. I demand that you turn over the copy."
+
+Again the cool smile and the steady voice.
+
+"You're a trifle late. I haven't a sheet; it is all gone."
+
+"You lie!" I flung the hot words fair in his teeth.
+
+A smile, mocking, maddening, formed upon his face.
+
+"I told you before you had lost. The book is copyrighted"--a pause,
+while the smile broadened--"copyrighted in my name, and sold."
+
+The instinct of battle, primitive, uncontrollable, came over me and
+the room turned dark. I fought it, until my hands grew greasy from the
+wounds where the nails bit my palms, then I lost control; of what
+follows all is confused.
+
+I dimly see myself leaping at him like a wild animal; I feel the
+tightening of the big neck muscles as my fingers closed on his throat;
+I feel a soft breath of night air as we neared the open window; then
+in my hands a sudden lightness, and in my ears a cry of terror.
+
+I awoke at a pounding on the door. It seemed hours later, though it
+must have been but seconds. I arose--and was alone. The window was
+wide open; in the street below, a crowd was gathering on the run,
+while a policeman's shrill whistle rang out on the night. A hundred
+faces were turned toward me as I looked down and I dimly wondered
+thereat.
+
+The knocking on the door became more insistent. I turned the lock,
+slowly, and a woman rushed into the room. Something about her seemed
+familiar to me. I passed my hand over my forehead--but it was useless.
+I bowed low and started to walk out, but she seized me by the arm,
+calling my name, pleadingly. Her soft brown hair was all loose and
+hanging, and her big eyes swimming; her whole body trembled so that
+she could scarcely speak.
+
+The grip of the white hand on my arm tightened.
+
+"Oh! You must not go," she cried; "you cannot."
+
+I tried gently to shake her off, but she clung more closely than
+before.
+
+"You must let me explain," she wailed. "I call God to witness, I was
+not to blame." She drew a case from the bosom of her dress.
+
+"Here are those stones; I never wore them. I wanted to, God knows, but
+I couldn't. Take them, I beg of you." She thrust the case into my
+pocket. "He made me take them, you understand; made me do everything
+from the first. I loved him once, long ago, and since then I couldn't
+get away. I can't explain." She was pleading as I never heard woman
+plead before. "Forgive me--tell me you forgive me--speak to me." The
+grip on my arm loosened and her voice dropped.
+
+"Oh! God, to have brought this on you when I loved you!"
+
+The words sounded in my ears, but made no impression. It all seemed
+very, very strange. Why should she say such things to me? She must be
+mistaken--must take me for another.
+
+I broke away from her grasp, and groped staggeringly toward the door.
+A weariness intense was upon me and I wanted to be home alone. As I
+moved away, I heard behind me a swift step as though she would follow,
+and my name called softly, then another movement, away.
+
+Mechanically I turned at the sound, and saw her profile standing clear
+in the open window-frame. Realization came to me with a mighty rush,
+and with a cry that was a great sob I sprang toward her.
+
+Suddenly the window became clear again, and through the blackness that
+formed about me I dimly heard a great wail of horror arise from the
+street below.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no other entry save the hasty scrawl in pencil.
+
+
+
+
+THE TOUCH HUMAN
+
+
+"Good-night." A lingering of finger tips that touched, as by accident;
+a bared head; the regular tap of shoes on cement, as a man walked down
+the path.
+
+"Good-night--and God bless thee," he repeated softly, tenderly, under
+his breath, that none but he might hear: words of faith spoken
+reverently, and by one who believes not in the God known of the herd.
+
+"Good-night--and God bless thee," whispered the woman slowly; and the
+south wind, murmuring northward, took the words and carried them
+gently away as sacred things.
+
+The woman stood thinking, dreaming, her color mounting, her eyes
+dimming, as she read deep the mystery of her own heart.
+
+They had sat side by side the entire evening, and had talked of life
+and of its hidden things; or else had remained silent in the unspoken
+converse that is even sweeter to those who understand each other.
+
+She had said of a mutual friend: "He is a man I admire; he has an
+ideal."
+
+"A thing but few of earth possess."
+
+"No; I think you are wrong. I believe all people have ideals. They
+must; life would not be life without."
+
+"You mean object rather than ideal. Does not an ideal mean something
+beautiful--something beyond--something we'd give our all for? Not our
+working hours alone, but our hours of pleasure and our times of
+thought. An ideal is an intangible thing--having much of the
+supernatural in its make-up; 'tis a fetish for which we'd sacrifice
+life--or the strongest passion of life,--love."
+
+"Is this an ideal, though? Could anything be beautiful to us after
+we'd sacrificed much of life, and all of love in its attainment? Is
+not everything that is opposed to love also opposed to the ideal? Is
+not an ideal, when all is told, nothing but a great love--the great
+personal love of each individual?"
+
+He turned to the woman, and there was that in his face which caused
+her eyes to drop, and her breath to come more quickly.
+
+"I don't know. I'm miserable, and lonely, and tired. I've thought I
+had an ideal, and I followed it, working for it faithfully and for it
+alone. I've shown it to myself, glowing, splendid, when I became weary
+and ready to yield. I've sacrificed, in attempting its attainment,
+youth and pleasure--self, continually. Still, I'm afar off--and still
+the light beckons me on. I work day after day, and night after night,
+as ever; but the faith within me is growing weaker. Might not the
+ideal I worshipped after all be an earth-born thing, an ambition whose
+brightness is not of pure gold, but of tinsel? That which I have
+sought, speaks always to me so loudly that there may be no mistake in
+hearing.
+
+"'I am thy god,' it says; 'worship me--and me alone.
+Sacrifice--sacrifice--sacrifice--thyself--thy love. Thus shalt thou
+attain me.'
+
+"One day I stopped my work to think; hid myself solitary that I might
+question. 'What shall I have when I attain thee?' I asked.
+
+"'Fame--fame--the plaudits of the people--a pedestal apart.'
+
+"'Yes,' whispered my soul to me, 'and a great envy always surrounding;
+a great fight always to hold thy small pedestal secure.'
+
+"Of such as this are ideals made? No. 'Twas a mistake. I have sought
+not an ideal, but an ambition--a worthless thing. An ideal is
+something beautiful--a great love. 'Tis not yet too late to correct my
+fault; to seek this ideal--this beautiful thing--this love."
+
+He reached over to the woman and their fingers, as by chance,
+touching, lingered together. His eyes shone, and when he spoke his
+voice trembled.
+
+"_You_ know the ideal--the beautiful thing--the love I seek."
+
+Side by side they sat, each bosom throbbing; not with the wild passion
+of youth, but with the deeper, more spiritual love of middle-life.
+Overhead, the night wind murmured; all about, the crickets sang.
+
+Turning, she met him face to face, frankly, earnestly.
+
+"Let us think."
+
+She rose, in her eyes the look men worship and, worshipping, find
+oblivion.
+
+A moment they stood together.
+
+"Good-night," she whispered.
+
+"Good-night," his lips silently answered, pressing upon hers.
+
+
+
+
+A DARK HORSE
+
+
+Iowa City is not large, nor are the prospects for metropolitan
+greatness at all flattering. Even her most zealous citizen, the
+ancient of the market corner, admits that "there ain't been much
+stirrin' for quite a spell back," and among the broad fraternity of
+commercial travellers, the town is a standing joke. Yet, throughout
+the entire State, no community of equal size is so well known. It is
+the home of the State University.
+
+In the year '90-something-or-other, there was enrolled in the junior
+class of the university, one Walter R. Chester, but it is doubtful
+whether five other students in the same classic seat of learning could
+have told you his given name. Away back in his freshman year he had
+been dubbed "Lord" Chester. And as "Lord" Chester alone is his name
+still preserved, and revered in university annals.
+
+The reasons lying back of this exaltation to the peerage were not very
+complex, but quite as adequate as those usually inspiring college
+nicknames. He was known to be country-bred, and the average freshwater
+school defines the "country" as a region of dense mental darkness,
+commencing where the campus ends and extending thence in every
+direction, throughout the unchartered realms of space.
+
+Each Friday afternoon, "Lord" Chester would carefully lock his room
+and disappear upon a bicycle; this much was plainly visible to
+everybody. On Monday he would reappear. The hiatus afforded a peg from
+which much unprofitable speculation was suspended. The argument most
+plausible was that he went home, while one romantic youth suggested a
+girl. The accusation was never repeated. What? The "Lord" a ladies'
+man? Tut! One would as soon expect a statue to drill a minstrel show.
+
+Thus Chester's personal affairs remained a mystery. He never talked
+reflexively--rare attribute in a college man--and, moreover, curiosity
+never throve well in his presence. It utterly failed to bear fruit.
+
+Another peculiarity distinguished him from all the rest of the
+student body: he roomed by himself. Although invariably courteous and
+polite to visitors, he was never known to extend an invitation for a
+second visit. He quite obviously wanted to be left alone, and the
+"fellows" met him more than half-way.
+
+But what, more than anything else, probably helped to designate him
+"Lord," was the scrupulous way in which he dressed. There was no hint
+of the pastoral in his sartorial accomplishments, and it was his one
+extravagance. Though from the country and therefore presumably poor,
+no swell son of the Western _haute monde_ made an equally smart
+appearance.
+
+We have been viewing the youth from the standpoint of his fellow-students.
+As a matter of fact, they never saw the real man, the man behind the
+closed door, at all. He was a terrific worker. When he decided to do a
+thing, he did it. Night was as day at such times, and meals were unthought
+of. He literally plunged out of sight into his work, and as yet he had
+never failed.
+
+One reason for this uniform success lay in the fact that he was able
+to define his limitations, and never attempted the impossible. He
+was, indeed, poor; that is, relatively so. His earliest recollections
+were associated with corn rows and grilling suns; which accounted for
+the present cheerfulness with which he tackled any task, and for his
+appetite for hard work. When tired, he would think of the weight of a
+hoe in a boy's hand at six o'clock in the afternoon, and proceed with
+renewed vigor.
+
+Such was "Lord" Chester: product of work and solitude; a man who knew
+more about the ideal than the real; a man who would never forget a
+friend nor forgive an injury; who would fight to the bitter end and
+die game--hero of "_the_" Marathon, whose exciting history is
+impossible to avoid in Iowa City.
+
+By nature, Chester was an athlete, and by way of exercise he was
+accustomed to indulge in a few turns daily upon the cinder path. One
+evening in early spring he was jogging along at a steady brisk pace,
+when two men in training-suits caught up with him. They were puffing
+when they fell in beside him. Presently they dropped behind, and one,
+a tall important youth, of the name of Richards, called out:
+
+"I say, me lud, aren't you going to clear the trail?"
+
+Quick as a shot Chester halted and faced around.
+
+"What's that?" he asked quietly.
+
+The other two nearly bumped into him, but managed to come to a
+standstill, before precipitating that catastrophe. They lurched back
+upon their heels, nearly toppling backwards, too surprised for the
+moment to speak. Chester did not stir.
+
+"Jiminy crickets!" Richards' companion exclaimed in a moment. "You're
+deuced sudden, Chester, I must say."
+
+And Richards' manner promptly grew conciliatory.
+
+"Old man," he said, smiling, "you really ought to train. You've got
+form--by George, you have! Besides, you wouldn't have any opposition
+to speak of, you know."
+
+Richards was still smiling; but a smile, however warmly encouraged
+from within, is apt to take cold in a frost. The casual glance with
+which Chester took in the young man, from his light sprinting-pumps to
+his eyes, may be accurately described as frigid. Not until he had held
+the other's embarrassed look for an appreciable pause did he deign to
+speak.
+
+"There really ought to be," he said without emotion, "at least one man
+in the field. I think I shall train."
+
+Thus it came about that "Lord" Chester decided to enter athletics.
+Five minutes previously even the thought had not occurred to him; but
+he wasn't the man to quail before a bluff.
+
+The track management of this particular university was an oligarchy;
+was governed by a few absolute individuals. Perhaps such a condition
+is not as rare as might be supposed. However that may be, it was here
+a case of being either "in" or "out." Chester was unpopular, and from
+the first had been out.
+
+There were only four entries for the running events, the same names
+appearing in all; so he could not be kept from the field. But he well
+knew that various ways existed by which favoritism could be shown, and
+that these preferences, too trifling in themselves to warrant
+complaint, might prove a serious handicap in a close contest. He knew
+that, however honors might lie among the other entries, they would
+hesitate at nothing to prevent him from taking a place. In fact,
+Richards openly boasted that he would pocket "'is ludship" at the
+finish.
+
+So Chester shaped his plans accordingly. He had never aimed at the
+impossible, nor did he now. He withdrew from all short-distance runs
+and yard dashes, and concentrated his mind upon the Marathon--thus
+dignified, although the faculty would permit nothing more arduous than
+two miles.
+
+In saying trained, everything is meant that the word can be made to
+imply: the sort of hour in, hour out, to-the-limit-of-endurance
+training which either makes or kills. A fortnight before Field Day
+Chester was in perfect condition, and had his capabilities gauged to a
+nicety. He was now entered only in the Marathon; they virtually had
+forced him from the half-mile, and they should be made to pay the
+penalty.
+
+One day before the race Chester went to the bank and inquired the
+amount of his balance. It was shown him: one hundred and six dollars
+and some odd cents. He drew a cheque for the amount, and thrust the
+bills into his pocket. From the bank he walked straight up Main Street
+for three blocks, then turned in at a well-kept brick house.
+
+"Mr. Richards in?" he asked of the servant-girl.
+
+"Yes, sir. Right upstairs--second door to the left. He's got company
+now."
+
+The junior nevertheless resolutely mounted the stairs and knocked upon
+the door. The noise inside resembled a pocket-edition of the Chicago
+Board of Trade, so Chester hammered again, louder.
+
+"Come!" some one yelled, and the noise subsided.
+
+He opened the door and stepped inside. A half-dozen young fellows were
+scattered about, but as he knew none of them, except by name, he
+ignored their presence and walked directly up to Richards.
+
+"I've come on business," he said; "can I speak with you a moment?"
+
+"Sure!" Richards removed his feet from a chair, kicking it at the
+same time toward his visitor. "These fellows know more about my
+business now than I do myself, so get it off of your chest, Chester."
+
+The company laughed, but Chester remained wholly unmoved.
+
+"All right," said he, calmly. "You're in the Marathon: want to risk
+anything on it?"
+
+Up went Richards' feet once more, this time to a table. He winked
+broadly at his friends, and replied with an air of vast carelessness,
+
+"Why--yes; I don't mind. Guess I can cover you."
+
+"How much?" demanded Chester. "Odds even, mind."
+
+"I said I'd cover you, didn't I?" with some warmth. Richards fumbled
+in his trousers pockets, extracting therefrom a handful of loose
+change.
+
+Chester advanced to the table. At sight of his roll of bills a sudden
+silence fell. All eyes were glued upon them while he counted.
+
+"Five--ten--fifteen"--and so on, up to one hundred. He stowed the
+remaining five back in his pocket, pushed the pile into the middle of
+the table and looked coolly down at his host. Said he,
+
+"One hundred, even, that I win the Marathon. Cover, or show these
+fellows the sort of piker you are."
+
+And Richards came very near to showing them. His face was a study. He
+hadn't ten dollars to his name; he was painfully aware of the fact,
+and here were these six boys who would know it too in about two
+seconds. He was rattled, and sat looking at the pile of bills as
+though charmed. He racked his brain for some way out of the
+predicament, but the only thing he could think of was to wonder
+whether the portrait on the top note was that of Hendricks or Rufus
+Choate. "It can't be Choate," suddenly occurred to him. "But then
+it--"
+
+There was a laugh in the back of the room. Richards stood up. A dozen
+fire alarms would not have recalled him so quickly. Whatever else
+might be said of the man he was game, and now his gameness showed.
+
+"Give me an hour; I'll meet you then in front of the postoffice."
+While speaking he had gotten into his coat; now he walked toward the
+door. "Amuse yourselves while I'm gone, fellows," he said, and
+disappeared down the stairway.
+
+Chester replaced the notes in his pocket, nodded gravely to the
+company and followed.
+
+Not a boy spoke, but all sat staring blankly at the doorway.
+
+An hour later, both Richards and Chester appeared at the postoffice.
+The former, by dint of much persistent circulation among his fellow
+athletes, had found enough of them who were willing to pool their
+funds in order to secure the necessary amount. The two young men had
+witnesses, the wager was properly closed and the money deposited.
+Neither spoke an unnecessary word during the meeting, but when Chester
+started to leave, Richards turned facetiously to his friends.
+
+"'Is bloomin' ludship will start training Friday; bet he has his wheel
+in soak."
+
+To which remark Chester paid not the slightest attention.
+
+Whatever may be said to the contrary, six boys can no more retain a
+secret than can six girls, and inside of an hour the story of the big
+bet had spread over the town. In due course it penetrated to the city:
+one day a reporter appeared and interviewed the principals, and on the
+following Sunday their photographs adorned the pink section of a great
+daily. This was nuts for the university--but it is getting ahead of
+our own story somewhat.
+
+Chester, naturally, was the centre of curiosity. He had not pawned his
+"bike," as was demonstrated when Friday rolled around; but had it been
+known that the last cent he owned in the world had been staked upon
+the issue, no doubt the interest would have been greater.
+
+Field Day opened bright and clear, and early in the afternoon Athletic
+Park began to fill. A rumor had gone abroad that the two principal
+competitors had actually come to blows, and that each had sworn to die
+rather than lose the race. Long before the opening event the inclosure
+was crowded with spectators, all eagerly discussing the Marathon, to
+the exclusion of every other contest. The opinion was freely expressed
+that Richards would "put a crimp in that chesty Chester," and that he
+would "win in a walk." They made no bones about playing favorites.
+
+It was a still, hot day, and if there is any advantage in atmospheric
+conditions each contestant should have been inspired with that
+absolute confidence of winning, without which the fastest race is but
+a tame affair. At two o'clock the band commenced playing. The judges
+tried to follow the programme, but the cries of "Marathon! Marathon!"
+grew so insistent and clamorous that they finally yielded, and the
+event was called.
+
+Richards responded first. He was popular, and the grandstand gave him
+an ovation as he took his position under the wire. It seemed as though
+the handkerchief of every girl present was in the air. The two
+figureheads, friends of Richards, came next, and last of all Chester.
+
+A feeble attempt at applause marked his passage in front of the
+grandstand; but he never looked up, and for any indication he gave to
+the contrary, he might have been the only person on the grounds. His
+track suit was hidden by a long black door curtain, in lieu of a
+bath-robe, and a pretty girl on the front row remarked audibly, "He's
+all ready for the funeral."
+
+"Sure thing," answered her companion. "He knows his obsequies are
+about to take place."
+
+"Peels well," a man by the rail critically commented.
+"But--rats!--Richards has pocketed this event ever since he's been
+here; you can't make the pace for him with anything slower than an
+auto."
+
+The runners were in line at last, crouching low, tense, finger-tips
+upon the ground, the starting-pistol above their heads.
+
+"Starters ready?" floated in a sing-song voice from the judges' stand.
+"Timers r-r-read-y-y?" A sharp crack from the pistol, and they were
+off.
+
+Then a queer thing happened. Instead of dawdling along behind, as
+every one expected, Chester, without an instant's hesitation, pushed
+to the front and set the pace.
+
+And what a pace! It was literally a race from the word go. Chester
+took the inside and faced the music, Richards and the others close in
+behind. Sympathy in the grandstand was beginning to turn; everybody
+appreciates pluck. The spectators, however, knew him to be a novice,
+and many supposed that he had lost his head; so when he passed the
+grandstand on the first lap, any amount of contradictory advice was
+shouted noisily.
+
+"Let them set the pace!" "You're killing yourself!" "Oh, you bally
+Lord!--go it, kid!" "Don't let 'em nose you out, Chester, old scout!"
+"Save your air, old top, you'll need it!" and much more of a like kind
+was hurled at him, which reached his ears through the veil of singing
+wind, like the roar of distant breakers upon the seashore.
+
+He kept his own counsel. He had followed that pace every day during
+the last two weeks of his training, and he knew precisely what he
+could do. Besides the air was quiet, and the disadvantage of being
+pace-maker was not so great as people thought.
+
+In this formation they came round the half-mile oval the second time,
+each man working with the nice regularity of well-oiled machinery. Not
+a sound now from the grandstand; only the soft _pat_ of the runners'
+feet could be heard. The crowd had caught Chester's idea: but could
+he hold out?
+
+They had passed the three-quarter pole on the third lap when a yell
+went up, and everybody rose excitedly to their feet. Space was growing
+rapidly between the leaders and those behind; it was now resolved to a
+duel between the principals.
+
+As they dashed past, the crowd examined them closely, scores of
+field-glasses being trained upon them like so many guns.
+
+Chester was still erect, his head well back, chest forward, arms
+working piston-like, close down at his sides, while his long, regular
+tread was as light and springy as an Indian's. His jaw was set grimly,
+but it was manifest that he was still breathing deep and regularly
+through his nostrils.
+
+It was equally manifest that his opponent was in distress. The last of
+his strength and determination was dying away in a desperate effort to
+keep his pace; his face was colorless, eyes staring, his step
+irregular. Worst of all, his mouth was open, and his chest could be
+seen to vibrate as he panted.
+
+[Illustration: He heard a voice ... and glanced back.]
+
+"By Jove!" muttered the man at the rail, as amazed as though the blue
+canopy of heaven had suddenly fallen, "Chester'll take it, I do
+believe!" And the crowd was beginning to believe the same.
+
+The rivals maintained their relative positions until, on the last lap,
+the three-quarter pole was once more reached. The two figureheads had
+dropped out and mounted a fence where they would not be too far away
+from the finish.
+
+Every eye was trained upon the racers, the excitement was tense.
+Chester was pounding grimly away; sweat was pouring down his face
+until it glistened in the sun; his legs ached as though in a boot of
+torture. But he had no thought of allowing Richards to close the gap
+between them by an inch. He was counting the _pat-pat-pat!_ of his
+feet upon the track. "Seventy-three more, and it's won, old boy," he
+muttered. He could hear Richards' every breath. "One, two, three,--"
+he counted.
+
+He heard a voice, so broken that the words could hardly be distinguished,
+and he glanced back.
+
+"For God's--sake, Chester--hold--up!" gasped Richards. "I--can't
+lose--this race--now."
+
+He was a pitiable figure, his white face drawn in lines of pain, his
+body swaying uncertainly, as he pressed despairingly on.
+
+For one moment Chester's heart felt a throb of pity. Then he thought
+of his work in sun and rain; of Richards' contempt in the past; of the
+cheers for his rival and the open ridicule of his own pretensions; and
+last of all, but far from being the least consideration, the two
+hundred dollars absolutely necessary to carry him through his final
+year to graduation.
+
+Ah, nobody knew about that two hundred dollars, save himself and one
+little girl, who had driven into town early in the afternoon, and who
+had slipped timidly into as good a seat as she could find in the
+stand. She showed one dot of pink among hundreds of fluffy white
+gowns; Chester was ignorant of her presence, but as he sped round and
+round the track, her eyes never once left him, nor did she cease
+praying silently that he might win!
+
+Only for an instant did he hesitate; then his face settled into an
+expression not pleasant to look upon. He forgot that he was tired,
+that a grandstand full of howling maniacs was ahead of him. He thought
+only of the girl in pink--and made his spurt.
+
+Richards tried to follow, but a haze was forming over his eyes. His
+heart was pounding until he believed that he must suffocate. Then he
+reeled suddenly, lost his balance and fell into darkness.
+
+"So this is victory!" murmured Chester to himself a moment later, as
+he swayed unsteadily upon the shoulders of a howling mob. He was
+thinking of poor Richards lying back there upon the track. But just
+then he espied the transfigured face of the girl in pink.
+
+"It is! It is!" he shouted joyfully.
+
+
+
+
+THE WORTH OF THE PRICE
+
+
+Nobody in a normal humor would dispute the fact that Clementine Willis
+was a strikingly handsome girl. One might even be moved, by a burst of
+enthusiasm, to declare her beautiful. There was about her that subtle,
+elusive charm of perfection in minute detail, possible only to the
+wealthy who can discriminate between art and that which is artificial,
+and who can take advantage of all of art's magic resources, without
+imparting the slightest suggestion of artificiality.
+
+Her hair and eyes were dark--very dark; her skin bore the matchless,
+transparent tint of ivory; every line of her high-bred face, and of
+her hands and her slender, arched feet, bespoke the ultimate degree of
+refinement.
+
+She was the sort of girl, in short, that a full-blooded man must needs
+stare at, perhaps furtively, but with no thought of boldness. Stupid,
+indeed, must be he who would attempt anything even remotely
+approaching familiarity with Miss Willis.
+
+Her smart brougham waits in front of a new and resplendent down-town
+office building on a certain afternoon, while Miss Willis ascends
+in one of the elevators to the tenth floor. She proceeds with
+assurance, but leisurely--mayhap she is a trifle bored--to a door
+which somehow manages to convey an impression of prosperity beyond.
+It bears upon its frosted glass the name of Dr. Leonard, a renowned
+specialist in diseases of the throat, besides the names of a
+half-dozen assistants--in much smaller lettering--who, doubtless,
+are in the ferment of struggling for positions of equal renown.
+
+The door opening discloses a neat, uniformed maid and a large and
+richly furnished reception-room. Five ladies, of various ages and all
+handsomely gowned, are seated here and there, manifestly forcing
+patience to relieve the _ennui_ which would have been tolerated with
+no other detail of the day's routine.
+
+This cursory survey is sufficient, it is hoped, to demonstrate that
+Dr. Leonard's practice is confined among a class of which most other
+practitioners might be pardonably envious.
+
+The white-aproned, white-capped maid smiled a polite recognition of
+the newest arrival. A bit flustered by the calmly impersonal scrutiny
+with which her greeting was received, she addressed Miss Willis in a
+subdued voice.
+
+"I was to tell you, Miss Willis, that there is no occasion for Dr.
+Leonard to see you himself to-day. If you please, Dr. Carter will fill
+your engagement."
+
+Miss Willis did not please. It was quite clear that she regarded this
+arrangement with considerable disfavor.
+
+"You may inform Dr. Leonard that I shall not wait," she said coldly.
+"If I am so far improved that I do not require his personal attention,
+I shall not come again."
+
+With that, she turned decisively to leave. The maid followed her,
+hesitantly, to the door, and Miss Willis could not repress a smile at
+the girl's consternation. The situation had ended in an altogether
+unexpected manner. And then, in the next instant, it became manifest
+that, however absolute Dr. Leonard might be, it was not a part of the
+maid's duties to discourage those who would seek his services. She was
+emboldened to protest.
+
+"Just try him, please, Miss Willis," in a nervous murmur;
+"he--truly--he's--"
+
+The assurance was left unfinished; but the speaker's flurry revealed
+her predicament, and Miss Willis smiled encouragement.
+
+"Very well," she returned graciously.
+
+The maid gave her a grateful look and conducted her though several
+rooms, all in accord with the sumptuous reception-room, to a tiny
+private office, where she opened the door and stood respectfully on
+one side.
+
+The visitor's submissive mood all at once vanished. She stared
+resentfully at the cramped quarters, and entered reluctantly, as if
+with a feeling of being thrust willy-nilly into a labelled pill-box. A
+man was writing at a desk in a corner, and he continued writing.
+
+"Take a chair, please," he said crisply, without looking up. And this
+was the only sign to indicate that he was aware that his privacy had
+been invaded.
+
+Miss Willis's dark eyes flashed. She seemed about to make an indignant
+rejoinder, but thought better of it. She ignored the invitation to sit
+down, however, and by and by the circumstance caught the writer's
+attention; he bent a quick, surprised look round at her--then
+proceeded with his writing. He did not repeat the request.
+
+He presently finished his task, noted the time, and made an entry upon
+a tabulated sheet beside him; he then filed the memorandum upon a
+hook, and swung round in his chair, facing the intruder--for such the
+girl felt herself to be.
+
+Fortunately Miss Willis was not without a sense of humor, and she was
+able to perceive an amusing quality in her reception to-day. Such
+supreme indifference to her very existence was so wholly foreign to
+anything in her past experience, that she was acutely sensible of its
+freshness and novelty.
+
+But now the man became all at once impressed with the circumstance
+that she was still standing, and he bounded guiltily to his feet.
+
+"Pardon me!" he exclaimed in confusion. "I was--was very busy when you
+came in. Won't you please have this chair?" He awkwardly shoved one
+forward.
+
+The man was young; Miss Willis was unable to determine whether he was
+good-looking, or ugly; whether he was the right sort, or impossible;
+so she accepted the proffered chair.
+
+He resumed his own seat, and leaned one arm wearily upon the desk.
+Already he had forgotten his momentary embarrassment, and he was now
+regarding the girl simply as a patient.
+
+"Dr. Leonard has given me the history of your case," he informed her
+in a matter of fact way. "He requests that I continue with it--unless,
+of course, you prefer that he treat you himself." He got up as he
+spoke, and Miss Willis decided that he was good-looking and young, and
+that he was tall and of a figure to appeal to the feminine eye.
+
+Then she was guilty of a most reprehensible act of slyness. She turned
+full upon him the batteries of her lustrous dark eyes, and smiled
+dazzlingly, bewitchingly.
+
+"I came to see Dr. Leonard," she said in a tone that made one think
+of dripping honey. "And I object to being turned over to an
+assistant--at least before consulting me."
+
+Utterly at variance with all precedent, the bewitching look produced
+no effect whatever. The man bowed gravely, pressed a bell-button, and
+then went over to where Miss Willis was sitting. Before he could
+speak--if he had any such intention--a girl in starched cap and apron
+appeared in answer to his ring.
+
+"Miss Willis has concluded not to remain," he informed the maid. "Show
+Number Twenty-seven into Room Four. Inform her that I will see her in
+two minutes." Producing his watch, he deliberately marked the time.
+
+He turned to Miss Willis in a moment, with an air which said as
+plainly as words could have said it: "It's a terrible waste of
+precious time, but if necessary I'll sacrifice the two minutes to
+humoring any further caprices you may develop."
+
+This was too much for the young lady's tranquillity: she laughed, and
+laughed frankly.
+
+"Pray tell me," she managed to say, "what _my_ number is."
+
+Without the slightest alteration in his serious mien, he consulted a
+list hanging beside his desk.
+
+"Seven," he announced at length.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Why?" quickly. "Has there been some mistake?"
+
+"No--oh, no"; Miss Willis was now perfectly composed. "I had a
+feeling, though, that it must have been nearer seven thousand."
+
+"It would be impossible, you know," the man patiently explained, "to
+see that many patients in a day."
+
+"Indeed? How interesting!" Her irony was unnoticed, and once more she
+laughed. To tell the truth, if anybody could associate such a
+frivolity with Miss Willis's dignity, she giggled.
+
+She contemplated the man with undisguised curiosity. Naturally enough
+she had met more men than she could even remember, but never one
+anything like this particular specimen. To add to her quickened
+interest, he was not only positively good-looking, but every line of
+his face, the poise of his well-proportioned, upstanding figure, the
+tilt of his head and the squareness of his chin, all spoke of
+strength; of elemental strength, and of a purposeful, resolute
+character. And, too, she told herself that he had nice eyes. The nice
+eyes never wavered in their respectful regard of her.
+
+He spoke again:
+
+"I can assure you that Dr. Leonard meant no discourtesy. The new
+arrangement means nothing further than that your trouble is more
+distinctively within my province. It is his custom, once he has
+thoroughly diagnosed a case, to assign it to the one of his assistants
+best qualified to treat it. Dr. Leonard is a very busy man; he can't
+be expected to do more than supervise his aides."
+
+And now he was actually rebuking her!
+
+He bowed once more, and moved toward the door. His hand was upon the
+knob, when an imperious command brought him to a standstill.
+
+"Wait," said Miss Willis. "Dr. Carter, if I remain here--"
+
+He coolly interrupted. "Pardon me, Miss Willis, but my patient is
+waiting. I shall be at liberty in ten minutes, then I shall return."
+
+This time he was gone.
+
+Number Four must have been an adjoining room, for the next instant
+she could hear Dr. Carter's voice through the thin board partition.
+His speech was as unemotional and businesslike as when addressing her.
+She could not make up her mind whether to go or wait, and so sat
+pondering and presently forgot to go.
+
+Here was a man such as she had never dreamed of as existing; one
+absolutely disinterested, who treated people--even people like
+Clementine Willis--as abstractly as a master mechanic goes about
+repairing a worn-out engine. Perhaps it was a characteristically
+feminine decision at which she presently arrived, but anyway she made
+up her mind, then and there, to know more of this man.
+
+After a while Miss Willis fell to surveying the room; with an
+undefined hope, perhaps, that it would throw some further light upon
+the young doctor's character. It was essentially the home of a busy
+man. Every article had a use and a definite one. The spirit of the
+place was contagious, and presently she began to have a feeling that
+she was the one useless thing there.
+
+In one corner of the room was the desk where he had been writing,
+upon which was a pile of loose manuscript. Reference books were
+scattered all about, some with improvised bookmarks, but mostly face
+downward, just as they had been left. The environment was that of one
+who seeks to overtake and outstrip Time, rather than to forget him.
+
+Dr. Carter returned at last, entering quickly but quietly.
+
+"Pardon my leaving you so abruptly," he apologized, the impersonal
+note again in his voice, and an inquiry as well. He seemed surprised
+that she had not departed.
+
+The girl was manifestly at a loss for words; this was such an
+extraordinary predicament for her to find herself in that she
+determined to say something at any cost.
+
+"Dr. Carter," she faltered, "I--have changed my mind; I--I--wish you
+to continue my treatment--if you will." It was not at all what she had
+intended saying, and she was chagrined to feel her cheeks grow
+suddenly hot; she knew that they must be rosy.
+
+It was likely that young Dr. Carter was unused to smiling; but
+suddenly his eyes were alight. He spoke, and the dry, impersonal note
+was gone.
+
+"I'm glad," he said. "We hard-working doctors can stand almost
+anything--without caring a snap of our fingers, too--but when it comes
+to doubting or questioning--not _our_ methods, but those that have
+been tried and proven, and of which we merely avail ourselves,--why,
+we can't be expected to waste much sympathy on the scoffers."
+
+He rang the inevitable bell, and gave word to the maid: "Tell Dr.
+Leonard that Miss Willis has decided to continue her treatment with
+me."
+
+Now, in the light of the foregoing experience, it was strange that
+during the next week Miss Willis's throat should require considerably
+more attention than it ever had under the celebrated specialist's
+personal ministrations. She made five visits to Dr. Carter, but it
+could not be said that he had advanced an inch toward the opening she
+had made. His voice and manner were a bit more sympathetic--and that
+was all.
+
+Miss Willis seemed to find a keen delight in the fact that her
+identity, for the time being, was erased by a number; during each
+visit she made it a point to learn what this number was, treating the
+matter in a sportive spirit, unbending her wit to ridicule a practice
+which failed to discriminate among the host of patients who came to
+see Dr. Leonard.
+
+"For our purposes," Dr. Carter tolerantly explained, "a number more
+conveniently identifies our patients; their differences are only
+pathological. A name is easily forgotten, Miss Willis, unless there is
+some unusual circumstance associated with it, to impress it upon the
+mind."
+
+She was curious to learn what unusual circumstance had caused him to
+retain her name, but lacked the temerity to ask. She would have been
+amazed, unbelieving, had he told her that it was her beauty; that he
+was clinging rather desperately to the unlovely number, which had no
+individuality and whose features were altogether neutral and
+negative.
+
+The change in his manner, when it came, almost took away her breath.
+It was on the occasion of her last visit. After the familiar
+preliminary examination, instead of proceeding at once with the
+treatment, as had been his invariable custom, Dr. Carter walked over
+to his desk and sat down. For a space he soberly regarded her.
+
+"Miss Willis," said he, presently, "there is nothing whatever the
+matter with your throat."
+
+She gasped. This calm statement brought confusingly to her mind the
+circumstance that she had forgotten her throat and its ailment, when,
+of all considerations, the afflicted member should have been uppermost
+in her mind. Dr. Carter had not, however, and he must be wondering why
+she continued to come after the occasion to do so no longer existed.
+He at once relieved her embarrassment, though.
+
+"I suppose," he said, and she felt a thrill at the note of regret in
+his voice, "that you will be glad to escape from this hive?"
+
+"No, I shan't," she said, with unnecessary warmth. This involuntary
+denial surprised even herself, and she blushed.
+
+The smile left Dr. Carter's lips, but he said nothing--merely sat
+looking at her in his grave way.
+
+Here was to be another period, which Miss Willis could look back upon
+as one of temporary inability to find words. She started to leave,
+furious with herself for her inaptness, and instead of going she
+paused and turned back.
+
+Dr. Carter had risen; he was standing as she had left him. She drew a
+card from her cardcase.
+
+"You may think what you please of me, Dr. Carter," she said with
+sudden impulse, extending the card and meeting his look steadily, "but
+I would be glad if you were to call."
+
+It seemed to take him a long time to read the address. All at once his
+hands were trembling, and when he looked up the expression in the gray
+eyes brought a swift tide of color to the girl's face, where it
+deepened, and deepened, until she tingled from head to foot, and a
+mist obscured her vision.
+
+"Nothing in all this world would give me more pleasure," said the
+man.
+
+The girl turned and fled.
+
+That very evening Dr. Carter availed himself of the invitation.
+Singularly enough, since she had been hoping all the afternoon that he
+would come, Clementine Willis was frightened when his name was
+announced. Her hand was shaking when he took it in his; but there was
+not a trace of expression on his face.
+
+Miss Willis realized, for the first time, that she had been horribly
+brazen--or, at least, she told herself that she had been--and as a
+consequence, she was wretchedly ill at ease. Her distress was in
+marked contrast with the man's self-possession, which amounted almost
+to indifference. There was no spark visible of the fire which had
+flashed earlier in the day. It was as though he had steeled himself to
+remain invulnerable throughout the call.
+
+And the usually composed girl prattled aimlessly, voicing platitudes,
+conventionalities, banalities, inanities--anything to gain time and to
+cover her embarrassment: to all of which the man listened in sober
+silence, watching her steadily.
+
+Abruptly, Miss Willis grew angry with herself, and stopped. When angry
+she was collected.
+
+Dr. Carter's face lit up humorously.
+
+"You have no idea," he said, "how you have relieved my mind."
+
+The girl looked a question.
+
+"I supposed I was the embarrassed individual," he laughed.
+
+"If you had only given me a hint," suggested the girl, reproachfully.
+She was now amazed that she had ever lost her grip upon herself, and
+wondered why she had.
+
+"A hint!" he exclaimed. "I was dumb; I thought you'd see."
+
+The tension was off, and they laughed together. From then on, both
+remained natural. In the midst of a lull, Dr. Carter suddenly said:
+
+"You'll think me a barbarian, Miss Willis, but I have a request to
+make. I am in the mood to-night to be unconventional"--the corners of
+his serious mouth lifted humorously--"to be what I really am," he
+illuminated, "and to meet you in the same spirit." He paused with a
+little shrug. "It is a disappointing reversion to the primitive, I
+must admit." He glanced up whimsically. "May I ask you a question--any
+question?"
+
+"Do you think it possible," the girl evaded, "for a modern woman to
+meet you--the way you say--naturally?"
+
+He seemed to question her seriousness.
+
+"I have seen little of women for a number of years," he returned, "but
+I'd hate to think it impossible."
+
+"Little of women!" was the surprised comment.
+
+"You misunderstand," he quickly corrected. "I go out so seldom that
+the woman I see is not the real woman at all; not the woman of
+home." His hand made a little motion of forbearance. "In his
+consultation-room the patients of a physician are--sexless."
+
+"I think that a woman--that I--can still be natural, Dr. Carter," said
+Miss Willis, slowly, her eyes downcast. "What did you wish to ask?"
+
+It was his turn to hesitate.
+
+"I hardly know how to put it, now that I have permission," he
+apologized, with a deprecatory little laugh.
+
+"We seldom do things in this world," he went on at once, "unless we
+want to, or unless the alternative of not doing them is more
+unpleasant." He merged generalities into a more specific assertion.
+"There was no alternative in your requesting me to call. Candidly, why
+do I interest you?"
+
+His voice was alive, and the woman, now thoroughly mistress of
+herself, gazed into the frankest of frank gray eyes.
+
+"I scarcely know," she said, weighing her answer. "Perhaps it was the
+novel experience of being considered--sexless; of being classified by
+a number, like a beetle in a case. Let me answer with another
+question: Why did I interest you sufficiently to come?"
+
+He sat in the big chair with his chin in his hand, looking now
+steadily past and beyond her, one foot restlessly tapping the rug.
+
+"I can't answer without it seeming so hopelessly egotistical." The
+half-whimsical, half-serious smile returned to his eyes. "Don't let me
+impose upon your leniency, please; I may wish to make a request
+sometime again."
+
+"I will accept the responsibility," she insisted.
+
+"On your head, then, the consequences." He spoke lightly, but with a
+note of restlessness and rebellion.
+
+"To me you are attractive, Miss Willis, because you are everything
+that I am not. With you there is no necessity higher than the present;
+no responsibility beyond the chance thought of the moment. You choose
+your surroundings, your thoughts. Your life is what you make it: it is
+life."
+
+"You certainly would not charge me with being more independent than
+you?" protested the girl.
+
+"Independent!" he flashed upon her, and she knew she had stirred
+something lying close to his soul. His voice grew soft, and he repeated
+the word, musingly, more to himself than to her: "Independent!"
+
+"Yes," with abrupt feeling, "with the sort of independence that
+chooses its own manner of absolute dependence; with the independence
+that gives you only so much of my time, so that the remainder may go
+to another; with the independence of imperative impartiality; the sort
+of independence that is never through working and planning for
+others--that's the independence I know."
+
+"But there are breathing-spells," interrupted Miss Willis, smilingly.
+"To-night, for example, you are not working for somebody else."
+
+"You compel me to incriminate myself," he rejoined, the whimsical,
+half-serious smile again lighting his gray eyes. "I should be working
+now, and I will have to make up the lost time when I go home." He
+bowed gallantly. "The pleasure is double with me, you observe; I do
+not think twice about paying a double price for it."
+
+He spoke lightly, almost mockingly; but beneath the surface there was
+even the bitter ring of revolt, and constantly before the girl were
+the little gestures, intense, impatient, that conveyed a meaning he
+did not voice. She could feel in it all the insistent atmosphere of
+the town, where time is counted by seconds. She wondered that he felt
+as he did, ignorant that the disquiet had come into his life only
+during the past week. To her, the glimpse of activity was fascinating
+simply because it was in sharp contrast with her life of comparative,
+dull emptiness.
+
+He caught the wistful look on her face.
+
+"You wonder that I rebel," he said, with an odd little throaty laugh.
+"I couldn't well appear any more unsophisticated: I might as well tell
+you. It's not the work itself, but the lack of anything else but work
+that makes the lives of such as I so bare. We are constantly holding a
+stop-watch on time itself, fearful of losing a second; the scratch of
+a pen sealing the life of a Nation, commuting a death-sentence,
+defining the difference between a man's success and ruin can all be
+accomplished in a second. If we let that second get away from us, we
+have been deaf to Opportunity's knock. We stop at times to think; and
+then the object for which we give our all appears so petty and
+inadequate, and what we are losing, so great. We laugh at our work at
+such times, and for the moment hate it." But he laughed lightly, and
+finished with a deprecating little minor.
+
+"You see, I'm relaxing to-night--and thinking."
+
+"But," Miss Willis protested, "I don't see why you should have only
+the one thing in your life. It is certainly unnecessary, unless you
+choose."
+
+He smiled indulgently.
+
+"You have no conception of what it means to shape your life to your
+income. I am poor, and I know. Years ago I had to choose between
+mediocrity and"--he looked at her peculiarly--"and love, or
+advancement alone. I had to choose, and fixing my choice upon the
+higher aim, I had to put everything else out of my life. The thought
+is intolerable that my name should always be under another's upon some
+office-door. You know what I chose: you know nothing of the constant
+struggle which alone keeps me, mind, soul, and body, centred upon my
+ideal, nor how readily I respond to a temptation to turn aside.
+
+"This," he completed listlessly, "is one of the nights when the price
+seems too large; in spite of me, regret will creep in."
+
+"But," persisted the girl, "when you succeed--it will not be--too
+late?" There was a plaintive inquiry in the words; the tragedy of the
+man's life had awakened pity.
+
+He spoke with a sudden passion that startled her.
+
+"It is too late already; my work has refashioned my life. I am
+desperately restless except when doing something that counts;
+something visible; and doing it intensely. I'll never"--his voice was
+bitter with regret--"never conform--now."
+
+The girl answered, almost unconsciously.
+
+"I think you can," she hesitated, "and will."
+
+For a long, long moment they searched each other's eyes.
+
+"And this price you are paying," said the girl at last, "is it worth
+it?"
+
+The man drew a long breath.
+
+"Ah, I wonder! To-night doubt has undermined my resolution."
+
+"If you question yourself so seriously," she said very softly, "then
+surely you can find but one answer."
+
+"Again I wonder. I have wondered and--and hoped--God help me!--since
+the moment I looked into your eyes."
+
+Suddenly he was out of his chair and coming toward her. Her heart
+leaped, her eyes shone; she extended her hands in welcome.
+
+"Then you will come again," she whispered, as they drew together.
+
+"If you will let me. I couldn't stay away now."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Breath of Prairie and other stories, by
+Will Lillibridge
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