ng indiscriminate destruction.

"You might have killed yourself," Robert said angrily. But Cosgrave
laughed, his eyes narrowed to blue-grey slits as though he did not want
Stonehouse to see all that was in them.

"I shouldn't have minded," he panted, "going off on the crest like
that--I wanted to run--I forgot."

"Well, for the Lord's sake, don't forget."

But for an instant at least he knew what Cosgrave meant. It had been the
sight of that downward rushing hill and the sudden choking exultation.
He had felt it too--that night in Acacia Grove in pursuit of the Greatest
Show--and once again. He could smell the scent of the trees and the
young grass blowing in his face.

And at the bottom there had been a mysterious wood like a deep, green
pool.

Then on the eighth day Cosgrave disappeared. He had set out in the early
morning for the nearest station to fetch their letters and fresh
provisions, and at dusk a village youth reached Stonehouse with a note
which had been scrawled in such haste that it was almost illegible. It
was as though Cosgrave had yielded suddenly and utterly to a prolonged
pressure.

He had to go back to town. It was something urgent. Stonehouse was not
to bother. He would be all right now.

The next day Stonehouse stalked and brought down his first "Royal." This
time the chase had cost him every ounce of his endurance, and in the
chill dusk he stood watching the gillie at his work on the lovely body
(still so warm and lissom that one could almost see the last sorrowful
heaving of its golden flanks) with a kind of stolid triumph as though now
he had wiped out that other failure, for he realized that he had been
both too sanguine and too impatient. When you were angling a man with a
sick brain back to health, you had to go slowly--delicately.

"It's because I care," he thought, half amused and half angry. "And why
do I care? It's as he said--a rotten habit."

But he returned to town. He tracked Cosgrave to his former
lodging-house, where a stout, heavily-breathing landlady showed every
readiness to be communicative and helpful.

"Yes, sir--he's here again--I think he was expecting you--mentioned your
name--he's out now and won't be back till late--dinner at the Carlton, he
said. If you'd like to leave a note, sir----"

She led him upstairs and watched him with a fat amusement as he stood
silent and frowning on the threshold.

"It _is_ a fair mess," she admitted blandly. "I