nose and chin--an
_ensemble_ of unabused power, the handiwork of Nature at her best, a
creation worth while, worth preserving intact and immortal.

"Yes," he answered, with satiric bitterness; "you will have to die, and
rot, just like the rest of us."

"Tell me!" Hiram commanded. "Will I die soon?"

Schulze reflected, rubbing his red-button nose with his stubby fingers.
When he spoke, his voice had a sad gentleness. "You can bear hearing it.
You have the right to know." He leaned back, paused, said in a low tone:
"Put your house in order, Mr. Ranger."

Hiram's steadfast gray eyes met bravely the eyes of the man who had just
read him his death warrant. A long pause; then Hiram said "Thank you," in
his quiet, calm way.

He took the prescriptions, went out into the street. It looked strange to
him; he felt like a stranger in that town where he had spent half a
century--felt like a temporary tenant of that vast, strong body of his
which until now had seemed himself. And he--or was it the stranger within
him?--kept repeating: "Put your house in order. Put your house in order."

CHAPTER II

OF SOMEBODIES AND NOBODIES

At the second turning Arthur rounded the tandem out of Jefferson Street
into Willow with a skill that delighted both him and his sister. "But why
go that way?" said she. "Why not through Monroe street? I'm sure the
horses would behave."

"Better not risk it," replied Arthur, showing that he, too, had had, but
had rejected, the temptation to parade the crowded part of town. "Even if
the horses didn't act up, the people might, they're such jays."

Adelaide's estimate of what she and her brother had acquired in the East
was as high as was his, and she had the same unflattering opinion of
those who lacked it. But it ruffled her to hear him call the home folks
jays--just as it would have ruffled him had she been the one to make the
slighting remark. "If you invite people's opinion," said she, "you've no
right to sneer at them because they don't say what you wanted."

"But _I_'m not driving for show if _you_ are," he retorted, with a
testiness that was confession.

"Don't be silly," was her answer. "You know you wouldn't take all this
trouble on a desert island."

"Of course not," he admitted, "but I don't care for the opinion of any
but those capable of appreciating."

"And those capable of appreciating are only those who approve," teased
Adelaide. "Why drive tandem among these 'jays?'"

"T