ued to goad him as they had done since
leaving 'Frisco. They gibed and jeered till he shunned them, living
alone in the fringe of the pines, bitter and vicious, as an outcast
from the pack will grow, whether human or lupine. He frequented only
the house of Captain and George, because they were exiles like
himself.

The partners did not relish this overmuch, for he was an odious
being, avaricious, carping, and dirty.

"His face reminds me of a tool," said George, once, "nose an' chin
shuts up like calipers. He's got the forehead of a salmon trout, an'
his chin don't retreat, it stampedes, plumb down ag'in his apple.
Look out for that droop of the mouth. I've seen it before, an' his
eyes is bad, too. They've stirred him up an' pickled all the good he
ever had. Some day he'll do a murder."

"I wonder what he means by always saying he'll have revenge before
spring. It makes me creep to hear him cackle and gloat. I think
he's going crazy."

"Can't tell. This bunch would bust anybody's mental tugs, an' they
make a mistake drivin' him so. Say! How's my gums look tonight?"
George stretched his lips back, showing his teeth, while Captain made
careful examination.

"All right. How are mine?"

"Red as a berry."

Every day they searched thus for the symptoms, looking for
discolouration, and anxiously watching bruises on limb or body. Men
live in fear when their comrades vanish silently from their midst.
Each night upon retiring they felt legs nervously, punching here and
there to see that the flesh retained its resiliency.

So insidious is the malady's approach that it may be detected only
thus. A lassitude perhaps, a rheumatic laziness, or pains and
swelling at the joints. Mayhap one notes a putty-like softness of
the lower limbs. Where he presses, the finger mark remains, filling
up sluggishly. No mental depression at first, nor fever, only a
drooping ambition, fatigue, enlarging parts, now gradual, now sudden.

The grim humour of seeing grown men gravely poking their legs with
rigid digits, or grinning anxiously into hand-mirrors had struck some
of the tenderfeet at first, but the implacable progress of the
disease; its black, merciless presence, pausing destructively here
and there, had terrorized them into a hopeless fatalism till they
cowered helplessly, awaiting its touch.

One night Captain announced to his partner. "I'm going over to the
Frenchmen's, I hear Menard is down."

"What's the us