elbow,
"here's something strange, only you won't understand it. Do you know,
the whole time I knew just where you were--I had a feeling somewhere in
the back of my neck. At first you were 'way off, over the horizon; then
you got to be a spot coming over the hill. Then I began to feel that
spot growin' bigger and bigger--after Rio Janeiro, crawling up, creeping
up. Gospel truth, I felt you sneaking up on my back. It got on my
nerves. I dreamed about it, and that morning on the trail when you was
just a speck on any old hoss--I knew! You--you don't understand such
things, Bub, do you?"

Frawley made an effort, failed, and answered helplessly:

"No, Bucky, no, I can't say I do understand."

"Why do you think I ran you into Rio Janeiro?" said Greenfield,
twisting on the leaves. "Into the cholery? What do you think made me lay
for this desert? Bub, you were on my back, clinging like a catamount. I
was bound to shake you off. I was desperate. It had to end one way or
t'other. That's why I stuck to you until I thought it was over with
you."

"Why didn't you make sure of it?" said Frawley with curiosity; "you
could have done for me there."

Greenfield looked at him hard and nodded.

"Keerect, Bub; quite so!"

"Why didn't you?"

"Why!" cried Greenfield angrily. "Ain't you ever had any imagination?
Did I want to shoot you down like a common ordinary pickpocket after
taking you three times around the world? That was no ending! God, what a
chase it was!"

"It was long, Bucky," Frawley admitted. "It was a good one!"

"Can't you understand anything?" Greenfield cried querulously. "Where's
anything bigger, more than what we've done? And to have it end like
this--to have a bug--a miserable, squashy bug beat you after all!"

For a long moment there was no sound, while Greenfield lay, twisting,
his head averted, buried in the leaves.

"It's not right, Bucky," said Frawley at last,
with an effort at sympathy. "It oughtn't to have ended this way."

"It was worth it!" Greenfield cried. "Three years! There ain't much dirt
we haven't kicked up! Asia, Africa--a regular Cook's tour through
Europe, North and South Ameriky. And what seas, Bub!" His voice
faltered. The drops of sweat stood thickly on his forehead; but he
pulled himself together gamely. "Do you remember the Sea of Japan with
its funny little toy junks? Man, we've beaten out Columbus, Jools Verne,
and the rest of them--hollow, Bub!"

"I say, what did you do it for