le Standing passed a
weary hand across his forehead.

"The happenings since then you know as well as I do. I don't need to
talk of them. I mean, how I met and married Nancy, when she was widow of
that no-account McDonald feller, the editor of _The Abercrombie
Herald!_"

Bat nodded.

"Yes, sure, I know, Les. When you married Nancy an' made her
thirteen-year-old daughter--your daughter."

"Yes. I'd almost forgotten. Yes, there's her girl, Nancy. She's still at
school. Well, anyway, you know, these things, all of 'em. But what you
don't know is that you--you Bat, old friend, are solely responsible for
all the work that's being done here. You, old friend, are responsible
that I've enjoyed seven years of something approaching peace of mind.
You, you with your bulldog fighting spirit, you with your hell-may-care
manner of shouldering responsibility, and facing every threat, have been
the staunch pillar on which I have always leant. Without you I'd have
gone under years ago, a victim of my own mental ghosts. No, no, Bat," he
went on quickly, as the lumberman shook his head in sharp denial, "it's
useless. I know. Leaning on you I've built up around me the reality of
that original dream, with the other things I've now lost, and with every
ounce in me I've worked for its fulfilment.

"Well, what's the logic of it all?" he continued, after a moment's
pause. "Yes, it is the logic of it. You may argue that for seven years
I've been doing a big work and there's no reason, in spite of what's
happened, that I should now abandon it all. But there is. And in your
strong old heart you'll know the thing I say is true--if cowardly.
During seven years, or part of them, I've known a happiness that's
compensated for every terror I've endured. Nancy's been my guardian
angel, and the boy, that was to be born, was the beacon light of my
life. My poor little wife has gone, and that beacon light, the son we
yearned for, has been snuffed right out. And in the shadows left I see
only the groping hand of Hellbeam reaching out towards me. In the end
that hand will get me, and crush the remains of my miserable life out. I
know. Just as sure as God, Hellbeam's going to get me."

The sweat of terror stood on the man's high forehead, and he wiped it
away.

Bat flung a clenched fist down upon the tree stump.

"You're wrong, Les. You're plumb wrong. If it means murder I swear
before God Hellbeam'll never lay hands on you. Hellbeam? Gee! Let him
se