of the fall
snapped the two or three square feet of stanch fibre the axe had spared.
That last strong anchorage broke, and the tree flashed into the rapids.
The churning, shooting waters made a plaything of it.

The next day he fell into deep ennui, and to beguile himself he rummaged
out of the canvas bag an old note-book and a pencil, and began a clumsy
and uninstructed effort to sketch the scene before him. The effort
proving quite abortive, he began to scrawl beneath it, 'Paul Armstrong.'
'Yours very truly, Paul Armstrong.' 'Disrespectfully yours, Paul
Armstrong.' 'Sacred to the memory of Paul Armstrong, who died of boredom
in the Rocky Mountains.' 'Paul Armstrong: the Autobiography of an Ass.'

He was in the very act of throwing the book away from him when he felt
suddenly arrested. Why not 'Paul Armstrong: an Autobiography? It would
fill the time. But the idea was no sooner formed than it began to pain.
What sort of a record would it have to be if it were honest? What a
confession of folly, of failure!

But as he sat his thoughts shaped themselves--

Thus.

THE STORY OF PAUL ARMSTRONG'S LIFE AND OF DESPAIR'S LAST JOURNEY

CHAPTER I

The first hint of memory showed a hearth, a fire, and a woman sitting
in a chair with an outstretched finger. An invisible hand bunched his
petticoats behind, and at his feet was a rug made of looped fragments
of cloth of various colours. He lurched across the rug and caught the
finger with a sense of adventure and triumph. Somebody clapped hands and
laughed. Memory gave no more.

Then there was a long, narrow, brick-paved yard, a kind of oblong well,
with one of the narrower sides broken down. The bricks of the pavement
were of many colours--browns, purples, reds. They were full of breakages
and hollows, and in rainy weather small pools gathered in the petty
valleys. The loftiest boundary wall had once been whitewashed, but was
now streaked green and yellow with old rains. A pump with a worn trough
of stone stood half-way up the yard, and near it was a boy--a very
little boy, in petticoats, and a yellow straw hat with ribbons. The
frock he wore was of some tartan pattern, with red and green in it He
had white thread socks, and shoes with straps across the instep. The
straps were fastened with round glass buttons, and the child, with his
feet planted close together, was looking down at the buttons with a
flush of pride. He was conscious of being prettily attired, a