Luke Weller was bound. Had he lifted his whip and lashed at his team, he had a conviction that they would not have moved until Olaf Nelson was willing to let him go. "Sometimes it seems to me"-Olaf's voice came as steady as a pastor's reading the lesson-"there can be nothing sinful in murder."

As Olaf walked back to the kitchen he did not hear the telltale click of the cautiously closed door. Lillah was standing in front of the stove when he entered, her hands behind her and her slim body struggling not to betray the agony of shivering.

Olaf walked over to her.
"You 're cold."

She did not let him touch her.

“I—I just took the butter and eggs down cellar. It 's no Palm Beach down there, you can bet."

not thinking about her. It was the first time Lillah had not been able to make him forget all the rest of existence in the joy of her body.

"Olaf," she said, "big goof, listen to me." She shook him sharply in an effort to concentrate his attention. "Olaf, sweetheart, do you ever think how many months we have been happy? What a long time there still is for us? Olaf," her hands swept over his hair and shoulders; she strained to him with every part of her mind and body,-"remember, we have been happier in one year than lots of people who live to be a hundred. Olaf, it is n't the years that matter. It's the moments."

He untwined her arms from about his neck and put her from him gently. "Olaf!"

He could not see the terror in her

"Don't touch me," he said. "I don't

Lillah shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, it don't matter, does it? Besides, I thought I heard the cat down there." She stopped, frightened lest she overdo the plausibility of her story. Then she turned toward him. "Olaf!"

He stood facing her, the light of the lamp behind him. Never had he seemed so large to her or of such potential strength. What if he really intended to do the thing he had hinted at to Luke Weller! "Olaf!"

She drew close to him, and her arms wound about his neck. He had n't done anything yet, she thought. Perhaps she could still save him. "Olaf!" she repeated. His arms held her against him, but there was no passion of response in the gesture. He was

don't want you to make me forgetsomething."

His words came slowly, but with terrible distinctness. For a long moment there was silence in the kitchen, and Lillah Nelson looked at the man who stood opposite her. For the first time she had been unable to control him with the hypnotism of her love. For the first time his will had been stronger than hers. She was beaten. In that moment Lillah Nelson accepted the inevitable.

"Olaf," she said at last, "you must go out and see the new calf." Her voice was calm. "Put down plenty of straw and cover it with gunny-sacks." He got up slowly to obey her. "While you are gone I will set the bread and then I think I 'll-turn in."

Half an hour later, when he came

back to the kitchen, she was no longer there. Late that night, as he stared up into the blackness, it occurred to him that he had not noticed the big yellow bowl on the kitchen-table in which the bread-dough was always raised.

The next day Luke Weller made the same journey across the prairie from Black Cloud to Bjorkman's farm. It was winter again, as bleak as though yesterday's mocking promise had never been made. Luke Weller shivered, and closed the eyes of his mind against the gray sky and the level acres cheer less under the dirty snow.

Swen Bjorkman was dead. One of the Lenning boys had ridden in to tell him. Olaf Nelson had met Rudi Lenning on the way into town, and had asked him to fetch out the doctor. It was too late for the doctor, though. The old man was cold. Rudi Lenning reckoned no one would miss him and that it would be a good riddance. He said Olaf seemed sort of dazed, but he did n't seem sorrowful. Well, Lord knew he had no reason to mourn the old devil.

No one answered his knock, and Luke Weller pushed open the door into the kitchen. It was empty. Then he heard footsteps outside, and Olaf stood in the doorway, a pile of wood in his

arms.

"You-" Olaf said. He still stood, as though all power of motion had left him.

"Yes, me." Luke Weller looked away from his eyes. "I-I suppose I had better look at your uncle." He put his medicine-bag on the table and attempted to appear casual.

"Yes," he said, "he 's there. Where he 's been for twenty years." Then suddenly he came forward. Olaf Nel

son was a big man, but now, with the great pile of wood in his arms, he seemed like some character out of a Norseman's legend, some one fabulous and terrible and elemental. "If you don't understand it,"-his eyes indicated the room where the dead man lay,-"remember all the time I can explain."

Luke Weller closed behind him the door of the front room. He heard Olaf Nelson tumble the wood into the woodbox by the stove. Then he heard him cross the kitchen and close the outside door behind him. After a moment Luke Weller walked over and looked down into the face of Swen Bjorkman. He was dead, that was obvious, as dead as the Ptolemies. It looked as though it had happened easily; his fingers still touched the frayed edge of the quilt, and the bedclothes were smooth. Yes, it had surely happened without any struggle. Luke Weller bent over to draw down the blanket when the door from the kitchen was opened, and Lillah stood in the doorway. Her eyes were the color of iris, and her cheeks were white. She closed the door quickly behind her and came a step into the room. "Where is he?" "Olaf?" She nodded. "I don't know.

Gone to take care

of the animals, probably." Luke Weller came close to her. He was afraid she might fall.

"I'm all right." She held up her hand to ward him away. "I'm all right. I tell you I 'm strong enough to take on somebody twice my size." Her eyes glittered strangely, and two spots now glowed on her cheeks. "You're all wrong about me, you and Olaf. I 've got more strength than

sought out the dead man. "More strength than he took me for. He said he would outlive me. He yelled it." Again she stopped, and her breath came in gasps. "Well, he did n't. He did n't. He's dead now, and I'm strong. He's dead now because he could n't struggle against me. I did it. It was easy, honest. He did n't even whimper. Just one little squeak, and he was gone."

"Lillah!" Luke Weller was beside her now, and held her in his arms. He could feel the quiver of her body and the sobbing of her breath against his throat. "Lillah!" he repeated, "Lillah!" "Olaf has n't come near me all day. He won't even look at me. He don't He don't know anything-definite. He's only afraid for me; and all the time he acts like he was the one that 's guilty. But he ain't." Again she stopped. It took so much energy just to speak now. "He ain't. No matter what he says, he ain't."

He carried her out of the room and up to her bedroom, and he covered her over with a blanket he found in the closet. Then he returned to his work. This was not the first autopsy Luke Weller had made. He was clever at that sort of thing. It was twilight when he went out to the kitchen, and Olaf Nelson had just lighted the kerosene-lamp on the table.

case." He turned to Olaf, suddenly, "You said he laughed yesterday, laughed heartily for the first time in years." Again he stopped. "Well, he paid for his joke. He paid for it." Luke Weller snapped his satchel together, and put on his coat. At the doorway he turned toward them; they had not moved from the table. "You know, I told you strange things happened sometimes, miracles. Well, this is one of them. You're free now, both of you. Free."

Lillah slipped her arm through Olaf's, and in her face was the peace of complete self-forgetfulness.

As he drove home that night under the starlight Luke Weller, too, was at peace. He had seen her for the last time, but he had held her once in his arms. She said he had n't struggled any when it happened, old Swen. He had only given one little squeak, one little tiny squeak. He remembered Olaf with the pile of wood in his arms. Olaf would have done it differently, very differently. Lillah knew this, too. Both knew that this time Olaf Nelson would have taken a stand, and Olaf would have had so long a time to go on living.

Then Luke Weller remembered some pictures he had once seen of the Colorado mountains. They said the air was clear out there, and the sky was as

shadows in the gorges. They would get a cabin somewhere high up in the sunshine. There they could see the dawn turn the gray rocks to coral. They could watch the crimson ball of sunset and the first star come out of the blue beyond the ridges. Yes, a year, two years; that was a long time in which to be happy. A long time.

HEN Frisco and I decided to

W leave New York for Boston, we

meant to "hop" a freight; but as a fast express conveniently arrived first at the New Haven freight yards in Harlem, we crawled up on the tender of the engine and concealed ourselves behind the iron side walls that rise above the reservoir. When well out of town we deserted the tender and slunk back to the first blind. The wind was chilly that night, and we were very uncomfortable. To cap the climax, in about an hour the engine took water on the fly. I know of no more surprising and lively experience a hobo can have than to be "riding the blind" when an engine takes water on the fly. As we snuggled against each other for warmth in the shivering blind, we suddenly felt a fine spray of water pecking at us from below. Frisco let out a warning shriek and made for the little ladder on the tender, and I followed with a wild leap, though I did not know what was about to happen. We were both too late, for a lurching mountain of water struck us head on head like a tidal wave. It pitched at us with such force that had we not been clinging tightly with both hands, it would have swept us from the train. Soaked to the skin, we crept back into the blind. I think there was n't a dry thread in my clothing.

What happened was this. At cer

tain intervals on the New Haven Road, set deep in the middle of the track between the rails, is a trough filled with water. Automatically, a scoop drops from the tender, and the water in the trough shoots into the reservoir while the train is still in motion. When the reservoir is filled before the end of the trough is reached, the surplus water of course overflows the tender, and creates such a tidal wave as I have just described.

When, nearly paralyzed with cold, we reached New London, we hopped off, our teeth chattering dismally, and let the train go where she would. We ran races with each other at top speed for an hour up and down the railroad tracks before our congealed blood began to flow.

As morning was several hours off, we looked for a shelter from the wind. The only retreat we could find that was fit for human habitation was a cattle-car filled with musty straw. It did not afford much protection, for the wind nipped at us through the open slats and made us so uncomfortable that we could n't sleep. We were vastly relieved when morning came, and with it a chance to look for breakfast. We managed to get what we needed most-hot coffee; then we tried to "bum" tobacco, but without success. Eventually, I secured two packages of a cheap mixture through