man's eye. One a tear of
heartbreaking sadness; one a tear of heartbreaking gladness.

"You will tell Max?" asked Marshall Sothern. "Poor old Max. And
now . . . let them come in. I have lived so much alone . . . I want to
die among my friends."

They stood, heads bared, faces drawn, about the figure which had again
slipped down upon the bear skin. Max knelt and took the lax hand and
kissed it.

"You are the greatest man in the world," he said incoherently. "Do you
think I am ungrateful? Do you think I'd remember a thing like my sworn
duty and forget all you've done for me, all . . ."

"A man is no man unless he does what he thinks is his duty, Max. I
have tried to do mine. You would have done yours."

Ramon Garcia, standing a little apart, came softly forward.

"You die, senor?" he asked very gently.

The old man nodded while David Drennen looked up angrily at the
interruption.

"You love your son?" Garcia asked, still very gently. "This Drennen is
your son and you love him much?"

"Yes."

"Then I, Ramon Garcia, who have never done a good thing in my life, I
do a good thing now! I give you something filled with sweetness to
carry in your heart? For why?" He shrugged gracefully. "It is so
short to tell, and maybe the telling make others happy, too. See. It
is like this: Your son love the senorita de Bellaire. She love him.
_Bueno_. I, too, love her. I cannot make her happy and love me; so I
will make her happy anyway. And you happy while you die, senor. And
your son happy always."

They all looked at him wonderingly. He paused a moment, gathered what
he had to say into as few words as might be and went on calmly.

"Senor David promise Miss Ygerne he stake Lemarc. He give Lemarc ten
thousand dollars. Lemarc come back and say to the lady: 'He lie. He
give me nothing. He say he give the money and more to the lady when
she give herself to him . . . for a little while.' But the lady who
had believe many lies will not believe this one. What then, _amigos_?
Then Ramon Garcia, loving the lady for his own, tell Sefton and Lemarc
what they shall do. He say Ernestine Dumont shall play sick; she shall
say she die and that George hit her; she shall make Senor David take
her in his arms, maybe. And we take the Senorita de Bellaire to see!"

A gasp broke from Ygerne; a look that no man might read sweeping into
her eyes. Drennen knelt still, looking stunned. A look of great
happiness cam