shone with a new sort of enthusiasm as he listened to
this man's story of grim and fighting determination that had led to the
discovery of that mountain of mica away up on the Clearwater Bulge. He
looked upon the other's strength, his bronzed face and the glory of
achievement in his eyes, and a great and yearning hopelessness burned
like a dull fire in his heart. He was no older than the man who sat on
the other side of the table--perhaps thirty-five; yet what a vast gulf
lay between them! He with his millions; the other with that flood of
red blood coming and going in his body, and his wonderful fortune of a
hundred thousand! Barrow leaned a little over the table, and laughed.
It was the laugh of a man who had grown tired of life, in spite of his
millions. Day before yesterday a famous specialist had warned him that
the threads of his life were giving way, one by one. He told this to
Curtis. He confessed to him, with that strange glow in his eyes,--a
glow that was like making a last fight against total
extinguishment,--that he would give up his millions and all he had won
for the other's health and the mountain of mica.

"And if it came to a close bargain," he said, "I wouldn't hold out for
the mountain. I'm ready to quit--and it's too late."

Which, after a little, brought Philip Curtis to tell so much as he knew
of the story of Peter God. Philip's voice was tuned with the winds and
the forests. It rose above the low and monotonous hum about them.
People at the two or three adjoining tables might have heard his story,
if they had listened. Within the immaculateness of his evening dress,
Barrows shivered, fearing that Curtis' voice might attract undue
attention to them. But other people were absorbed in themselves. Philip
went on with his story, and at last, so clearly that it reached easily
to the other tables, he spoke the name of Peter God.

Then came the interruption, and with that interruption a strange and
sudden upheaval in the life of Philip Curtis that was to mean more to
him than the discovery of the mica mountain. His eyes swept over
Barrow's shoulder, and there he saw a woman. She was standing. A low,
stifled cry had broken from her almost simultaneously with his first
glimpse of her, and as he looked, Philip saw her lips form gaspingly
the name he had spoken--Peter God!

She was so near that Barrow could have turned and touched her. Her eyes
were like luminous fires as she stared at Philip. Her face wa