his feet sang its queer, crooning moor-song as it
rambled onward, chuckling to meet a bed of pebbles somewhere out of
sight, whispering mysteriously to the rushes that fringed its banks of
peat, deepening to a sudden contralto as it poured over granite boulders
into a scum-flecked pool below.

For a long time the man sat smoking. Occasionally he turned his head to
watch with keen eyes the fretful movements of a fly hovering above the
water. Then a sudden dimple in the smooth surface of the stream arrested
his attention. A few concentric ripples widened, travelled towards him,
and were absorbed in the current. His lips curved into a little smile
and he reached for his rod. In the clear water he could see the origin
of the ripples; a small trout, unconscious of his presence, was waiting
in its hover for the next tit-bit to float downstream. Presently it rose
again.

"The odds are ten to one in your favour," said the man. "Let's see!"

He dropped on one knee and the cast leapt out in feathery coils. Once,
twice it swished; the third time it alighted like thistledown on the
surface. There was a tiny splash, a laugh, and the little greenheart
rod flicked a trout high over his head. It was the merest
baby--half-an-ounce, perhaps--and it fell from the hook into the herbage
some yards from the stream.

"Little ass!" said Maynard. "That was meant for your big brother."

He recovered his cast and began to look for his victim. Without avail he
searched the heather, and as the fateful seconds sped, at last laid down
his rod and dropped on hands and knees to probe among the grass-stems.

For a while he hunted in vain, then the sunlight showed a golden sheen
among some stones. Maynard gave a grunt of relief, but as his hand
closed round it a tiny flutter passed through the fingerling; it gave a
final gasp and was still. Knitting his brows in almost comical vexation,
he hastened to restore it to the stream, holding it by the tail and
striving to impart a life-like wriggle to its limpness.

"Buck up, old thing!" he murmured encouragingly. "Oh, buck up! You're
all right, really you are!"

But the "old thing" was all wrong. In fact, it was dead.

Standing in the wet shingle, Maynard regarded the speckled atom as it
lay in the palm of his hand.

"A matter of seconds, my son. One instant in all eternity would have
made just the difference between life and death to you. And the high
gods denied it you!"

On the opposite side of