is the way
with strong men--the fact that for him life was over, with nothing
left to him save an hour or so of labored breath and a few muttered
sentences, he did not forget that vow. He called Phoebe close to the
bed, placed the bag of gold in Grant's trembling hands, and stared
intently from one face to the other.

"Mis' Hart, he ain't got--anybody--my folks--I lost track of 'em years
ago. You see to it--git some learnin' in his head. When a man knows
books--it's--like bein' heeled--good gun--plenty uh ca't'idges--in
a fight. When I got that gold--it was like fightin' with my bare
hands--against a gatlin' gun. They coulda cheated me--whole thing--on
paper--I wouldn't know--luck--just luck they didn't. So you take it--and
git the boy schoolin'. Costs money--I know that--git him all it'll
buy. Send him--where they keep--the best. Don't yuh let up--n'er let
him--whilst they's a dollar left. Put it all--into his head--then he
can't lose it, and he can--make it earn more. An'--I guess I needn't
ask yuh--be good to him. He ain't got anybody--not a soul--Injuns don't
count. You see to it--don't let up till--it's all gone."

Phoebe had taken him literally. And Grant, if he had little taste
for the task, had learned books and other things not mentioned in
the curriculums of the schools she sent him to--and when the bag was
reported by Phoebe to be empty, he had returned with inward relief to
the desultory life of the Hart ranch and its immediate vicinity.

His father would probably have been amazed to see how little difference
that schooling made in the boy. The money had lasted long enough to take
him through a preparatory school and into the second year of a college;
and the only result apparent was speech a shade less slipshod than that
of his fellows, and a vocabulary which permitted him to indulge in an
amazing number of epithets and in colorful vituperation when the fancy
seized him.

He rode, hot and thirsty and tired, from Sage Hill one day and found
Hartley empty of interest, hot as the trail he had just now left
thankfully behind him, and so absolutely sleepy that it seemed likely to
sink into the sage-clothed earth under the weight of its own dullness.
Even the whisky was so warm it burned like fire, and the beer he tried
left upon his outraged palate the unhappy memory of insipid warmth and
great bitterness.

He plumped the heavy glass down upon the grimy counter in the dusty far
corner of the little store a