y.

"Better get the wife down to Sacramento," he said to Daddy John. "The
man's not going to last and you can't keep her up here."

"Is he going to die?" said the old man.

The doctor pursed his lips.

"He oughtn't to. He's a Hercules. But the strongest of 'em go this
way with the work and exposure. Think they can do anything and don't
last as well sometimes as the weak ones."

"Work and exposure oughtn't to hurt him. He's bred upon it. Why
should he cave in and the others of us keep up?"

"Can't say. But he's all burned out--hollow. There's no rebound.
He's half gone now. Doesn't seem to have the spirit that you'd expect
in such a body."

"Would it do any good to get him out of here, down to the valley or the
coast?"

"It might--change of air sometimes knocks out these fevers. You could
try the coast or Hock Farm. But if you want my opinion I don't think
there's much use."

Then on the first fine day the doctor rode away with some of their dust
in his saddlebags, spying on the foaming river for good spots to locate
when the rains should cease and he, with the rest of the world, could
try his luck.

His visit had done no good, had given no heart to the anguished woman
or roused no flicker of life in the failing man. Through the weakness
of his wasting faculties Courant realized the approach of death and
welcomed it. In his forest roamings, before his illness struck him, he
had thought of it as the one way out. Then it had come to him vaguely
terrible as a specter in dreams. Now bereft of the sustaining power of
his strength the burden of the days to come had grown insupportable.
To live without telling her, to live beside her and remain a partial
stranger, to live divorcing her from all she would desire, had been the
only course he saw, and in it he recognized nothing but misery. Death
was the solution for both, and he relinquished himself to it with less
grief at parting from her than relief at the withdrawal from an
existence that would destroy their mutual dream. What remained to him
of his mighty forces went to keep his lips shut on the secret she must
never know. Even as his brain grew clouded, and his senses feeble, he
retained the resolution to leave her her belief in him. This would be
his legacy. His last gift of love would be the memory of an undimmed
happiness.

But Susan, unknowing, fought on. The doctor had not got back to the
Porter Ranch before she began arranging to mo