He paused at last, just at
the dark margin of an impenetrable thicket. The wolf whined
disconsolately just beyond the range of his vision.

"Ezram!" he called, a curious throbbing quality in his voice. "Are you
there, Ez? It's me--Ben."

But the thickets neither rustled nor spoke. The cracked old voice he had
learned to love did not speak in relief, in that moment of unutterable
suspense. Indeed, the silence seemed to deepen about him. The spruce
trees were hushed and impassive as ever; the moon shone and the wind
breathed softly in his face. Fenris came whimpering toward him.

Together, the man and the wolf, they crept on into the thicket. They
halted at last before a curious shadow in the silvered covert. Ben knew
at once he had found his ancient comrade.

He and Ezram had had their last laugh together. He lay very still, the
moonlight ensilvering his droll, kindly face,--sleeping so deeply that
no human voice could ever waken him. An ugly rifle wound yawned darkly
at his temple.

XV

The first effect of a great shock is usually a semi-paralysis of the
entire mental mechanism and is, as a rule, beneficent. The brain seems
to be enclosed in a great preoccupation, like a wall, and the messages
of pain and horror brought by the nerves batter against it in vain. The
senses are dulled, the perceptions blunted, and full realization does
not come.

For a long time, in which time itself stood still, Ben sat beside the
dead body of his old counselor and friend as a child might sit among
flowers. He half leaned forward, his arms limp, his hands resting in his
lap, a deep wonder and bewilderment in his eyes. Dully he watched the
moon lifting in the sky and felt the caress of the wind against his
face, glancing only from time to time at the huddled body before him.
The wolf whined softly, and sometimes Ben reached his hand to caress the
furry shoulder.

But slowly his wandering faculties returned to him. He began to
understand. Ezram was dead--that was it--gone from his life as smoke
goes in the air. Never to hear him again, or see him, or make plans with
him, or have high adventures beside him along the lonely trails. Fenris
had found him in the darkness: here he lay--the old family friend, the
man who had saved him, redeemed him and given him his chance, his old
"buddy" who had brought him home. The thing was not credible at first:
that here, dead as a stone, lay the shell of that life that had been his
own sal