to--to keep ourselves alive. I told him
about Mary-Clare and Noreen. I couldn't think of anything else. There
didn't seem to be anything else. The other fellow hadn't any one, he
said.

"When help came, there was only room for one. One had to wait.

"That other chap," Larry moistened his lips in the old nervous fashion
that Northrup recalled, "that other chap kept telling them about my
wife and child--he said he could wait; but they must take me!

"God! Northrup, I think I urged them to take him. I hope I did, but I
cannot remember--I might not have, you know. I can remember what he
said, but I can't recall what I said."

"I think, Rivers, you played fair!"

"Why? Northrup, what makes you think that?" The haggard face seemed to
look less ghastly.

"I've seen others do it at such a time."

"Others like me?"

"Yes, Rivers, many times."

"Well, there were weeks when nothing mattered," Larry went on, "and
then I began to come around, but something in me was different. I
wanted, God hearing me, Northrup, I wanted to make what that other
chap had done for me--worth while.

"When I got to counting up what I'd gone through and holding to the
new way I felt, I began to get well--and--then I came home. Came to my
father's house, Northrup--that's what Mary-Clare said when she saw
me.

"That's what it is--my father's house. You catch on?"

"Yes, Rivers, I catch on." Then after a pause: "Let me light the
lamp." But Rivers caught hold of him.

"No, don't waste time--they may come back at any moment--there'll
never be another chance."

"All right, go on, Rivers."

The soft autumn day was drawing to its close, but the west was still
golden. The light fell on the two men near the window; one shivered.

"There isn't much more to say. I wanted you to know that I'm not going
to be in the way very long.

"You and I talked man to man once back there in the shack. Northrup,
we must do it now. We needn't be damned fools. I've got a line on
Mary-Clare and yes, thank God! on you. I can trust you both. She
mustn't know. When it's all over, I want her to have the feeling that
she's played square. She has, but if she thought I felt as I do
to-day, it would hurt her. You understand? She's like that. Why, she's
fixed it up in her mind that I'm going to pull through, and she's
braced to do her part to the end; but"--here Larry paused, his dull
eyes filled with hot tears; his strength was almost gone--"but I
wanted you to help