the
desperation of one who makes his last awful onset against fate and doom.

Dupont also had his knife at work. At last it drank blood, but as he got
it home he suddenly reeled blindly, lost his balance, and lurched into the
water with a groan.

Lygon, weapon in hand and bleeding freely, waited for him to rise and make
for the canoe again.

Ten, twenty, fifty seconds passed. Dupont did not rise. A minute went by,
and still there was no stir, no sign. Dupont would never rise again. In
his wild rage he had burst a blood-vessel on the brain.

Lygon bound up his reeking wound as best he could. He did it calmly,
whispering to himself the while.

"I must do it. I must get there if I can. I will not be afraid to die
then," he muttered to himself.

Presently he grasped an oar and paddled feebly.

A slight wind had risen, and, as he turned the boat in to face the Forks
again, it helped to carry the canoe to the landing-place.

Lygon dragged himself out. He did not try to draw the canoe up, but began
this journey of a mile back to the tent he had left so recently. First,
step by step, leaning against trees, drawing himself forward, a journey as
long to his determined mind as from youth to age. Would it never end? It
seemed a terrible climbing-up the sides of a cliff, and, as he struggled
fainting on, all sorts of sounds were in his ears, but he realized that
the Whisperer was no longer there. The sounds he heard did not torture,
they helped his stumbling feet. They were like the murmur of waters, like
the sounds of the forest and soft, booming bells. But the bells were only
the beatings of his heart--so loud, so swift.

[Illustration: FOR MINUTES THE STRUGGLE CONTINUED]

He was on his knees now, crawling on--on--on. At last there came a light,
suddenly bursting on him from a tent he was so near. Then he called, and
called again, and fell forward on his face. But now he heard a voice above
him. It was _her_ voice. He had blindly struggled on to die near her, near
where she was, she was so pitiful and good.

He had accomplished his journey, and her voice was speaking above him.
There were other voices, but it was only hers that he heard.

"God help him--oh, God help him!" she was saying.

He drew a long, quiet breath. "I will sleep now," he said, clearly.

He would hear the Whisperer no more.

AS DEEP AS THE SEA

"What can I do, Dan? I'm broke, too. My last dollar went to pay my last
debt to-day. I've n