These sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took Gerald by surprise.

‘I don’t think it’s any good going away now, mother, at the last minute,’ he said, coldly.

‘You take care,’ replied his mother. ‘You mind YOURSELF—that’s your business. You take too much on yourself. You mind YOURSELF, or you’ll find yourself in Queer Street, that’s what will happen to you. You’re hysterical, always were.’

‘I’m all right, mother,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to worry about ME, I assure you.’

‘Let the dead bury their dead—don’t go and bury yourself along with them—that’s what I tell you. I know you well enough.’

He did not answer this, not knowing what to say. The mother sat bunched up in silence, her beautiful white hands, that had no rings whatsoever, clasping the pommels of her arm–chair.

‘You can’t do it,’ she said, almost bitterly. ‘You haven’t the nerve. You’re as weak as a cat, really—always were. Is this young woman staying here?’

‘No,’ said Gerald. ‘She is going home tonight.’

‘Then she’d better have the dog–cart. Does she go far?’

‘Only to Beldover.’

‘Ah!’ The elderly woman woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she seemed to take knowledge of her presence.

‘You are inclined to take too much on yourself, Gerald,’ said the mother, pulling herself to her feet, with a little difficulty.

‘Will you go, mother?’ he asked, politely.

‘Yes, I’ll go up again,’ she replied. Turning to Gudrun, she bade her ‘Good–night.’ Then she went slowly to the door, as if she were unaccustomed to walking. At the door she lifted her face to him, implicitly. He kissed her.

‘Don’t come any further with me,’ she said, in her barely audible voice. ‘I don’t want you any further.’

He bade her good–night, watched her across to the stairs and mount slowly. Then he closed the door and came back to Gudrun. Gudrun rose also, to go.

‘A queer being, my mother,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ replied Gudrun.

‘She has her own thoughts.’

‘Yes,’ said Gudrun.

Then they were silent.

‘You want to go?’ he asked. ‘Half a minute, I’ll just have a horse put in—’

‘No,’ said Gudrun. ‘I want to walk.’

He had promised to walk with her down the long, lonely mile of drive, and she wanted this.

‘You might JUST as well drive,’ he said.

‘I’d MUCH RATHER walk,’ she asserted, with emphasis.

‘You would! Then I will come along with you. You know where your things are? I’ll put boots on.’

He put on a cap, and an overcoat over his evening dress. They went out into the night.

‘Let us light a cigarette,’ he said, stopping in a sheltered angle of the porch. ‘You have one too.’

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, d‘ye see. But there was somethin’ wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin’, and it didn’t turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you, and — and —”

“And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely, staring up at his grimy visage.

“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then Indian Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, dearie, your mother.”

“Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl, dropping her face in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.

“Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder and we tramped it together. It don’t seem as though we‘ve improved matters. There’s an almighty small chance for us now!”

“Do you mean that we are going to die to?” asked the child, checking her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.

“I guess that’s about the size of it.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said, laughing gleefully. “You gave me such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we’ll be with mother again.”

“Yes, you will, dearie.”

“And you too. I’ll tell her how awful good you‘ve been. I’ll bet she meets us at the door of heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot of buckwheat cakes, hot and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was fond of. How long will it be first?”

“I don’t know — not very long.” The man‘s eyes were fixed upon the northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared three little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly did they approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large brown birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and then settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. They were buzzards, the vultures of the West, whose coming is the forerunner of death.

“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. “Say, did God make this country?”

“Of course He did,” said her companion, rather startled by this unexpected question.

“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,” the little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country in these parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the trees.”

“What would ye think of offering up prayer?” the man asked diffidently.

“It ain’t night yet,” she answered.

“It don’t matter. It ain‘t quite regular, but He won’t mind that, you bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the wagon when we was on the plains.”