tly he grew restless again, and said to Follett:--

"I want you to have me buried here. Up there to the north, three
hundred yards from here on the right, is a dwarf cedar standing alone.
Straight over the ridge from that and half-way down the other side is
another cedar growing at the foot of a ledge. Below that ledge is a
grave. There are stones piled flat, and a cross cut in the one toward
the cedar. Make a grave beside that one, and put me in it--just as I am.
Remember that--_uncoffined_. It must be that way, remember. There's a
little book here in this pocket. Let it stay with me--but surely
uncoffined, remember, as--as the rest of them were."

"But, father, why talk so? You are going home with us."

"There, dear, it's all right, and you'll feel kind about me always when
you remember me?"

"Don't,--don't talk so."

"If that beating would only stay out of my brain--the thing is crawling
behind me again! Oh, no, not yet--not yet! Say this with me, dear:--

"_'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
still waters.'_"

She said the psalm with him, and he grew quiet again.

"You will go away with your husband, and go at once--" He sat up
suddenly from where he had been lying, the light of a new design in his
eyes.

"Come,--you will need protection now--I must marry you at once. Surely
that will be an office acceptable in the sight of God. And you will
remember me better for it--and kinder. Come, Prudence; come, Ruel!"

"But, father, you are sick, and so weak--let us wait."

"It will give me such joy to do it--and this is the last."

She looked at Follett questioningly, but gave him her hand silently when
he arose from the ground where he had been sitting.

"He'd like it, and it's what we want,--all simple," he said.

In the light of the fire they stood with hands joined, and the little
man, too, got to his feet, helping himself up by the cairn against which
he had been leaning.

Then, with the unceasing beats of the funeral-drum in their ears, he
made them man and wife.

"Do you, Ruel, take Prudence by the right hand to receive her unto
yourself to be your lawful and wedded wife, and you to be her lawful and
wedded husband for time and eternity--"

Thus far he had followed the formula of his Church, but now he departed
from it with something like defiance coming up in his voice.

"--with a covenant and promise on your part t