o' devils turned loose for
recess."

The old man shifted his crutch and sipped at his liquor.

"Most o' us seen the top o' the hill," he resumed, "an' the brown
hillmen, what of 'em wasn't layin' limp by the guns, a skitterin'
through the scrub after a Boh who'd took off on a stray cavalry horse.

"But they was a many o' us as didn't--layin' sprawled among the rocks
o' the bare hillside, an' their horses runnin' wild to keep up wi' the
charge. We found Captain Fronte wi' his whole front blow'd out by a
shell an' his shoulders kind o' tumbled in where his lungs
belonged--but thim eyes was lookin' straight at the hilltop.

"An' Oi looked in 'em long--for Oi loved him--an' was glad. 'Cause Oi
know'd Captain Fronte McKim was seein' hell--an' enjoyin' it."

He set down the empty glass and favored Creed with a cold stare: "An'
his eyes is like _that_--the stranger's--an' yours ain't, nor
Moncrossen's."

CHAPTER XII

THE TEST

With only one-half of his journey behind him and the chill night-wind
whipping through the unchinked crevices of the deserted shack; with the
prospect of an unsavory supper of soggy sock-eye and a lump of frozen
bread, Bill Carmody fervently wished himself elsewhere.

His mind lingered upon the long row of squat, fat-footed shoe-packs
which the old man had indicated with his gnarled crutch. How good they
would feel after the grinding newness of his boots! And coffee--he
could see the row of tin pots hanging from their wires, and the long,
flat slabs of bacon suspended from the roof-logs of the store.

He found himself, for the first time in his life, absolutely dependent
upon his own resources. He cut the top from a can of salmon and thawed
out his bread on the top of the dirty stove. He had no cup, so he used
the salmon-can, limping in stockinged feet to the spring near the door,
whose black waters splashed coldly in a tiny rivulet that found its way
under the frozen surface of a small creek. The water was clear and
cold, but tasted disgustingly fishy from its contact with the can.

As he entered the shack and closed the sagging door, his glance was
arrested by an object half concealed in the cobwebbed niche between the
lintel and the sloping roof-logs--an object that gleamed shiny and
black in the dull play of the firelight. He reached up and withdrew
from its hiding-place a round quart bottle, across whose top was pasted
a familiar green stamp which proclaimed that the contents ha