s hand almost
unconsciously, and the greeting was embarrassed and perfunctory; but
his two companions, each in turn, gravely followed his lead, and Joe's
set face flushed a little. It was the first time in many years that
men of their kind in Canaan had offered him this salutation.

"He wouldn't let me send for you," he told them. "He said he knew
you'd be here soon without that." And he led the way to Eskew's
bedside.

Joe and the doctor had undressed the old man, and had put him into
night-gear of Roger Tabor's, taken from an antique chest; it was soft
and yellow and much more like color than the face above it, for the
white hair on the pillow was not whiter than that. Yet there was a
strange youthfulness in the eyes of Eskew; an eerie, inexplicable,
luminous, LIVE look; the thin cheeks seemed fuller than they had been
for years; and though the heavier lines of age and sorrow could be
seen, they appeared to have been half erased. He lay not in sunshine,
but in clear light; the windows were open, the curtains restrained, for
he had asked them not to darken the room.

The doctor was whispering in a doctor's way to Ariel at the end of the
room opposite the bed, when the three old fellows came in. None of
them spoke immediately, and though all three cleared their throats with
what they meant for casual cheerfulness, to indicate that the situation
was not at all extraordinary or depressing, it was to be seen that the
Colonel's chin trembled under his mustache, and his comrades showed
similar small and unwilling signs of emotion.

Eskew spoke first. "Well, boys?" he said, and smiled.

That seemed to make it more difficult for the others; the three white
heads bent silently over the fourth upon the pillow; and Ariel saw
waveringly, for her eyes suddenly filled, that the Colonel laid his
unsteady hand upon Eskew's, which was outside the coverlet.

"It's--it's not," said the old soldier, gently--"it's not on--on both
sides, is it, Eskew?"

Mr. Arp moved his hand slightly in answer. "It ain't paralysis," he
said. "They call it 'shock and exhaustion'; but it's more than that.
It's just my time. I've heard the call. We've all been slidin' on
thin ice this long time--and it's broke under me--"

"Eskew, Eskew!" remonstrated Peter Bradbury. "You'd oughtn't to talk
that-a-way! You only kind of overdone a little--heat o' the day, too,
and--"

"Peter," interrupted the sick man, with feeble asperity, "did you ever