all gardens
just across the street. It seemed infinitely long ago, but very real.
He even remembered dimly an open place at the other side of the building
where the ranchmen tied their horses. To test himself he walked around.
Yes, it was there, but no horses stood there now, heads drooping, bridle
reins thrown loosely over the rail. Only a muddy automobile, without
lights, and a dog on guard beside it.

He spoke to the dog, and it came and sniffed at him. Then it squatted in
front of him, looking up into his face.

"Lonely, old chap, aren't you?" he said. "Well, you've got nothing on
me."

He felt a little cheered as he turned back toward the hotel. A few
encounters with the things of his youth, and perhaps the cloud would
clear away. Already the court-house had stirred some memories. And on
turning back down the hill he had another swift vision, photographically
distinct but unrelated to anything that had preceded or followed it. It
was like a few feet cut from a moving picture film.

He was riding down that street at night on a small horse, and his father
was beside him on a tall one. He looked up at his father, and he seemed
very large. The largest man in the world. And the most important.

It began and stopped there, and his endeavor to follow it further
resulted in its ultimately leaving him. It faded, became less real,
until he wondered if he had not himself conjured it. But that experience
taught him something. Things out of the past would come or they would
not come, but they could not be forced. One could not will to revive
them.

He stood at a window facing north that night, under the impression
it was east, and sent his love and an inarticulate sort of prayer to
Elizabeth, for her safety and happiness, in the general direction of the
Arctic Circle.

Bassett had not returned in the morning, and he found himself with a
day on his hands. He decided to try the experiment of visiting the
Livingstone ranch, or at least of viewing it from a safe distance, with
the hope of a repetition of last night's experience. Of all his childish
memories the ranch house, next to his father, was most distinct. When
he had at various times tried to analyze what things he recalled he had
found that what they lacked of normal memory was connection. They stood
out, like the one the night before, each complete in itself, brief, and
having no apparent relation to what had gone before or what came after.

But the ranch house h