for something, Jim," he said. "I guess ye've found
it now. Good luck to ye, old comrade."

CHAPTER 13. THE LAST STAGE

A small boy crept into the darkened hut. The unglazed windows were
roughly curtained with skins, but there was sufficient light from the
open doorway to show him what he wanted. He tiptoed to a corner where
an old travelling trunk lay under a pile of dirty clothes. He opened it
very carefully, and after a little searching found the thing he sought.
Then he gently closed it, and, with a look towards the bed in the other
corner, he slipped out again into the warm October afternoon.

The woman on the bed stirred uneasily and suddenly became fully awake,
after the way of those who are fluttering very near death. She was still
young, and the little face among the coarse homespun blankets looked
almost childish. Heavy masses of black hair lay on the pillow, and the
depth of its darkness increased the pallor of her brow. But the cheeks
were flushed, and the deep hazel eyes were burning with a slow fire....
For a week the milk-sick fever had raged furiously, and in the few hours
free from delirium she had been racked with omnipresent pain and deadly
sickness. Now those had gone, and she was drifting out to sea on a tide
of utter weakness. Her husband, Tom Linkhorn, thought she mending, and
was even now whistling--the first time for weeks--by the woodpile. But
the woman knew that she was close to the great change, and so deep was
her weariness that the knowledge remained an instinct rather than a
thought. She was as passive as a dying animal. The cabin was built of
logs, mortised into each other--triangular in shape, with a fireplace in
one corner. Beside the fire stood a table made of a hewn log, on which
lay some pewter dishes containing the remains of he last family meal.
One or two three-legged stools made up the rest of the furniture, except
for the trunk in the corner and the bed. This bed was Tom Linkhorn's
pride, which he used to boast about to his friends, for he was a
tolerable carpenter. It was made of plank stuck between the logs of the
wall, and supported at the other end by crotched sticks. By way of a
curtain top a hickory post had been sunk in the floor and bent over the
bed, the end being fixed in the log wall. Tom meant to have a fine skin
curtain fastened to it when winter came. The floor was of beaten earth,
but there was a rough ceiling of smaller logs, with a trap in it which
could be