ger fragment,
but upon this he was like to choke; his mouth was dry and curiously no
place for even the choicest cake. He wondered about it in something like
panic, staring at it in puzzled consternation. There was the choice
thing and he couldn't eat it. Then he became aware that his eyes were
hot, the lids burning; and there came a choking, even though he no
longer had any cake in his mouth. Suddenly he knew that he couldn't eat
the cake because he had lost his brother--his brother who had passed on.
He gulped alarmingly as the full knowledge overwhelmed him. He was
wishing that Merle had kept the knife, even if it wasn't such a good
knife, so he would have something to remember him by. Now he would have
nothing. He, Wilbur, would always remember Merle, even if he was no
longer a twin, but Merle would surely forget him. He had passed on.

Over by the little house he heard the bark of Frank, the dog. Frank's
voice was changing, and his bark was now a promising baritone. His owner
tried to whistle, but made poor work of this, so he called, "Here,
Frank! Here, Frank!" reckless of betraying his own whereabouts. His
voice was not clear, it still choked, but it carried; Frank came
bounding to him. He had a dog left, anyway--a good fighting dog. His
eyes still burned, but they were no longer dry, and his gulps were
periodic, threatening a catastrophe of the most dreadful sort.

Frank, the dog, swallowed the cake hungrily, eating it with a terrible
ease, as he was wont to eat enemy dogs.

CHAPTER VIII

Midsummer faded into late summer, and Dave Cowan was still small-towning
it. To the uninformed he might have seemed a staff, fixed and permanent,
to Sam Pickering and the Newbern Center _Advance_. But Sam was not
uninformed. He was wise in Dave's ways; he knew the longer Dave stayed
the more casually would he flit; an hour's warning and the _Advance_
would be needing a printer. So Sam became aware on a day in early
September that he would be wise to have a substitute ready. He knew the
signs. Dave would become abstracted, stand longer and oftener at the
window overlooking the slow life of Newbern. His mind would already be
off and away. Then on an afternoon he would tell Sam that he must see a
man in Seattle, and if Sam had taken forethought there would be a new
printer at the case next day. The present sojourn of Dave's had been
longer than any Sam Pickering could remember, for the reason, it seemed,
that Dave had