t seem to be lying around. And every time you find one of those
things, it seems to set the things life wants you to have farther and
farther away. That's what Peter's doing." He smiled ever so gently.
"He's looking for what he calls gold. Guess I'll find some of Peter's
gold--in yonder bluff."

The doctor's eyes were staring out at their destination. He had no
answer. He caught something of Jim's meaning, but his hard mind had
not the proper power of assimilation.

"If that bluff was a thousand miles off, Doc, I still shouldn't have
anything in my fool-head to tell. Seems to me a bit chilly. Couldn't
we drive faster?"

"No. By Gad, we couldn't!"

The driver's words came with a sudden outburst of passion. If half the
silent curses he was hurling at the head of the venomous Smallbones at
that moment took effect, the man would surely have then and there been
blotted out of the history of Barnriff.

Jim had no more to say, and the other had no power to frame the
thoughts which filled his mind. And so a silence fell upon them as
they approached the woods.

Through the perfect fretwork of the upper branches the eastern light
shone cold and pure; in the lower depths the gray gloom had not yet
lifted. The dark aisles between the trees offered a gloomy welcome.
They suggested just such an ending as was intended for their journey.

The leaders had passed round the southern limits, and were no longer
in view. The doctor headed his horses upon their course. Something of
the eagle light had gone out of his eyes. He stared just ahead of his
horses, but no farther. As they came to the bend, where Barnriff would
be shut off from their view, Jim turned in his seat, and who can tell
what was in his mind at the moment? He knew it was his last glimpse of
the place, which for him had held so many disappointments, so many
heartaches. Yet--he wanted to see it.

But his eyes never reached the village. They encountered two objects
upon the prairie, and fastened themselves upon them, startled, even
horrified. A large man was running, bearing in his arms a strange
burden, and behind him, trailing wearily, but still running, was a
woman. He could have cried out at the sight, and his cry would have
been one of horror. Instead, he turned to his companion.

"No reasonable request is denied a--dying man, Doc," he said, eagerly.
"Drive faster."

Without a word the other touched his horses with the whip, and they
broke from their amble int