emed to strike him at first as ghosts. He stared at them aghast,
and recoiled. Then the old ghosts smiled and stepped forward with open
arms. But he recoiled again, and his welcome to his far-come,
heart-hungry parents was a groan.

They saw that he had a revolver in his hand. His eyes recurred to it,
and he turned here and there for a place to lay it, but seemed unable to
let it go. His mother flung forward and threw her arms about him, her
lips pursed to kiss him, but he turned away with lowered eyes. His
father took him by the shoulders and said:

"Why, what's the matter, boy? Ain't you glad to see your Maw--and me?"

For answer he only breathed hard and chokingly. His eyes went to the
revolver again, then roved here and there, always as if searching for a
place to hide it.

"Give that thing to me, Steve," the old man said. And he took it in his
hands, forcing from the cold steel the colder fingers that clung as if
frozen about the handle.

Once he was free of the weapon, the boy toppled into a chair, his mother
still clasping him desperately.

The old man knew something about firearms. He found the spring, broke
the revolver, and looked into the cylinder. In every chamber was the
round eye of a cartridge. Three of them bore the little scar of the
firing-pin.

Old Coburn leaned hard against the wall. He looked about for a place to
hide the horrible machine, but he, too, could not let go of it. His
mouth was full of the ashes of life. He would have been glad to drop
dead. But beyond the sick, clammy face of his son he saw the face of his
wife, an old face, a mother's face, witless with bewilderment. The old
man swallowed hard.

"What's happened, Steve? What's been goin' on?"

The young man only shook his head, ran his dry tongue along his lips,
tore a piece of loose skin from the lower one with his teeth, and
breathed noisily through nostrils that worked like a dog's. He pushed
his mother's hands away as if they irked him. The old man could have
struck him to the ground for that roughness, but the prayers in the
mother's eyes restrained him.

"Better tell us, Steve. Maybe we might help you."

The young man's head worked as if he were gulping at a hard lump; his
lips moved without sound, his gaze leaped from place to place, lighting
everywhere but on his father's waiting, watching eyes, and always coming
back to the revolver with a loathing fascination. At last he spoke, in a
whisper like the rasp of chaf