ittle fox, you won't ... you need not
worry about me, Doctor ... on Sunday, too--snowshoes and all.... LOOK
OUT MAJOR!... and we need you here, Dick,--Ellis and Susan, Father
Jennings, the foreigners--all of us...."

Always he kept his face turned toward the heights, and climbed. The
afternoon, waning, found him groping slowly upward, the furious energy
of his fever wearing off. His voice was weaker but he babbled
unceasingly, through dry lips parted in set fever-grin.

"I hope I did not miss, Sakay. I hope I did not miss.... 'Imagine
bristly Berkshire swine upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!'--and if
they make a break, SMASH 'EM!... Don't wait, Deane, don't wait."

Unaware of the ill omened forms which, surrounding him while still the
sun was high overhead, had kept apace all afternoon with his
slackening gait, he halted under a huge tree, leaning against the
trunk in sudden weariness. His voice, weak, tremulous, carried to an
audience he could not see:

Just to know that years so fair might come again,
Awhile ...

Oh! To thrill again to your dear voice--
Your smile....

At the end of the song his hoarse laughter rasped through, the woods.
He sank down, tried to rise, then lay where he had fallen beneath the
great tree. He lay still while the last white rays of the dying sun
faded from the topmost leaves far overhead, heedless of the narrowing
circle of eyes which flashed in the dusk.

Then, as he weakly pressed a hot hand against his scalding eyes in a
gesture of pain that was infinitely pathetic, the Hill People closed
in.

CHAPTER XII

THE MAJOR FOLLOWS

The big wall fan, a new symbol of the progress of the American
undertaking, oscillated in jumpy turns that rustled the papers on the
polished desk. Major Bronner sat staring at the maps which covered the
walls of his office. His heavily tanned face bore new lines, worry and
grief and there was a new set to the heavy jaw.

Rising with sudden determination he hurried down the corridor into the
Governor's office and faced Governor Mason with the strained aspect of
a strong man sorely beset. The Governor gravely studied the eyes that
bored beseechingly into his own, then reached into one of his desk
baskets and lifted a stiff paper.

"Major," he said slowly, "here is Lieutenant Terry's promotion. They
forwarded it immediately after receipt of my telegraphed report of his
prompt action against Malabanan's brigands." As the Major di