pull one way, and she
another. Don't you give her up!"

"I'll hang till she shakes me, Dan!" laughed the other, lapsing into the
slang of the men as his hopes rose.

They said good-night and took their several ways, Dan to break up the
little retreat in the woods, which he no longer needed, since hope and
action were to supersede despair and remorseful grief; Dalton to tramp
sturdily back to the village, resolved to wait and work.

As he neared the settlement he noticed lights ablaze in Bachelor's Row,
and many figures flitting about with hurried movements. He stopped to
inquire the cause. Mrs. Hemphill edged her way close to him, breaking in
before the slower speech of the man so questioned had forced its way
out.

"Why, you see Murfree's dead, at last. He's been trying to fling hisself
out o' bed agin, an' it took three men to hold him. In the struggle he
just cullopsed and died. They wasn't nobody but Dan could keep him down
lately, and Dan's gone some'ers to-night."

She had scarcely finished when the lad, on a well-weighted wheel,
sprinted into view. Dalton called him.

"This way, Dan," and he flung himself off.

"What is it? Murfree off again?"

"Yes," walking beside the boy as he led his wheel on a detour around the
group. "Off forever, poor fellow! They were trying to keep him on the
bed when he 'cullopsed,' they tell me."

The word had impressed Dalton, and he could not refrain from using it
himself, smiling over it in the darkness. But Dan did not notice.

"I oughtn't to have left him, but I got so down-hearted I had to. Come
around through my room, and we can get in without forcing this crowd. I
want to put up my bike."

They were soon in the apartment which Murfree had occupied, just across
from the cobbler's. Dr. Browne stood over the bed, and had the two
watchers guarding the door to keep out the frankly-curious people
without. They thronged up to its lintels just as the surf presses
against the dykes, that are the doors of the land, to guard it from that
strange old sea which would learn all its secrets, only to obliterate
them. The doctor looked up. "He is resting at last," he said in brusque
fashion, "and a good thing for everybody. Did you ever see this mark on
him, Dan? Regular tatooing, isn't it?"

They both examined the bare shoulder, and, on its curve into the arm,
observed the red and blue marking, plainly defined on the white skin. A
circle formed of twisted snakes, head to head a