from him. A dreadful waking nightmare pursued him. It was the
complete wrecking of a strong mentality, the shattering of an iron
nerve under a sledge-hammer blow that had been timed to the moment. He
might walk to the scaffold with a step that was outwardly firm. But it
would be merely the physical effort of a man in whom all hope is dead.

So the Fort landing was reached and passed. Kars alone disembarked,
his canoe remaining ready to overhaul his companions at their next
night camp. He was going to tell his story to those who must learn the
truth. It was a mission from which he shrank, but he knew that his
lips alone must tell it. He hoped and believed it was the final act of
the drama these cruelly injured people must be forced to witness. Then
the gloomy curtain would be dropped, but to rise again on scenes of
sunlight and happiness.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE SUMMER OF LIFE

The passage of time for John Kars had never been so swift, so feverish
in the rush of poignant events. Four months had passed since he had
landed like a shadow in the night on the banks of Snake River, to tell
the story of men's evil to those to whom he would gladly have imparted
only happy tidings.

Now he was at the landing again, with pages of tragic history turned in
his book of life. But they were turned completely, and only the memory
of them was left behind. The other pages, those remaining to be
perused, were different. They contained all those things without which
no life could ever be counted complete. That happiness which all must
seek, and the strong and wise will cling to, and only the weak and
foolish will make a plaything of.

It was the crowning day of his life, and he desired to live every
moment of it. So he had left his bed under the hospitable roof of
Father Jose to witness the first moment of its birth.

The first gray shadow lit the distant hilltops. To him it was like the
first stirring of broken slumber. Strange but familiar sounds broke
the profound stillness. The cry of belated beast, and the waking cries
of the feathered world. The light spread northward. It moved along
stealing, broadening towards the south. It mounted the vault of night.
Again, to him it was the growth of conscious life, the passing from
dream to reality.

He saw the stubborn darkness yield reluctantly. He watched the silver
ghosts flee from the northern sky, back, back to the frigid bergs which
inspired their fantast