t him for a seat. None offered in the close vicinity of the corpse
and Alec, its sentinel; but, equal to his own necessity, he took a
newspaper from his pocket, folded it into a small square, laid it on the
wet beaten grass, and sat thereon, arching his knees till only the soles
of his boots touched the ground. To Alec's eye his long, thin figure
looked so odd, bent into this repeated angle, that he almost suspected
burlesque, but none was intended. The youth clasped his hands round his
knees, the better to keep himself upright, and seated thus a few yards
from the body, he shared the watch for some time as mute as was all else
in that silent place.

Alec's curiosity became aroused. At last he hesitated in his walk.

"You are from the States?"

"Well, yes; I am. But I reckon I'm prouder of my country than it has
reason to be of me. I'm down in the mouth to-night--that's a fact."

A fine description of sorrow would not have been so eloquent, but
exactly what he sorrowed for Alec did not know. It could hardly be for
the death merely.

Alec paced again. He had made himself an uneven track in the ragged
grass. Had the lineaments of the dead been more clearly seen, death
would have had a stronger influence; but even as it was, death,
darkness, and solitude had a language of their own, in which the hearts
of the two men shared more or less.

At length the American spoke, arresting Alec's walk.

"See here," he said, "if what they say is true--and as far as I know it
is--he's got up from being dead _once_ already."

The emphasis on the word "once" conveyed the suggestion which had
evidently just occurred to him.

"Oh, I know all about _that_ story." Alec spoke with the scorn of
superior information, casting off the disagreeable suggestion. "I was
there myself."

"You were, were you? Well, so was I, and I tell you I know no more than
babe unborn whether this old gentleman's Cameron or not."

Alec's mind was singularly free from any turn for speculative thought.
He intended to bring Bates to see the dead in the morning, and that
would decide the matter. He saw no sense in debating a question of fact.

"I was one of the fellows in that survey," explained Harkness, "and if
you're the fellow we saw at the station, as I reckon you are, then I
don't know any more about this old gentleman I've been housing than you
do."

Trenholme had an impulse to command silence, but, resisting it, only
kept silence himself and resume