away along the waves of prairie grass. I wint back and give Grey
Nose, my Injin bed-fellow, a lift wid me fut. 'Come out of that,' says
I, 'and tell me if dead or alive I am.' He got up, and there was the
noise soft and grand again, but with it now the voices of men, the flip
of birds' wings and the sighin' of tree tops, and behind all that the
long wash of a sea like none I ever heard.... 'Well,' says I to the
Injin grinnin' before me, 'what's that, in the name o' Moses?' 'That,'
says he, laughin' slow in me face, 'is the Tall Master--him that brought
you to the camp.' Thin I remimbered all the things that's been said of
him, and I knew it was music I'd been hearin' and not children's voices
nor anythin' else at all.

"'Come with me,' says Grey Nose; and he took me to the door of a big
tent standin' alone from the rest.

"'Wait a minute,' says he, and he put his hand on the tent curtain; and
at that there was a crash, as a million gold hammers were fallin' on
silver drums. And we both stood still; for it seemed an army, with
swords wranglin' and bridle-chains rattlin', was marchin' down on us.
There was the divil's own uproar, as a battle was comin' on; and a long
line of spears clashed. But just then there whistled through the larrup
of sound a clear voice callin', gentle and coaxin', yet commandin' too;
and the spears dropped, and the pounding of horsehoofs ceased, and then
the army marched away; far away; iver so far away, into--"

"Into Heaven!" flippantly interjected Lazenby. "Into Heaven, say I, and
be choked to you! for there's no other place for it; and I'll stand by
that, till I go there myself, and know the truth o' the thing." Pierre
here spoke. "Heaven gave you a fine trick with words, Shon McGann.
I sometimes think Irishmen have gifts for only two things--words and
women. ... 'Bien,' what then?"

Shon was determined not to be angered. The occasion was too big. "Well,
Grey Nose lifted the curtain and wint in. In a minute he comes out. 'You
can go in,' says he. So in I wint, the Injin not comin', and there in
the middle of the tint stood the Tall Master, alone. He had his fiddle
to his chin, and the bow hoverin' above it. He looked at me for a long
time along the thing; then, all at once, from one string I heard the
child laughin' that pleasant and distant, though the bow seemed not to
be touchin'. Soon it thinned till it was the shadow of a laugh, and I
didn't know whin it stopped, he smilin' down at th