then stood
still. He caught the Factor's arm; but he seemed unable to speak yet;
his face was troubled, his eyes were hard upon the player.

The procession passed the empty lodges, leaving the ground strewn with
their weapons, and not one of their number stayed behind. They passed
away towards the high hills of the north-west-beautiful austere
barriers.

Still the trader gazed, and was pale, and trembled. They watched
long. The throng of pilgrims grew a vague mass; no longer an army of
individuals; and the music came floating back with distant charm. At
last the old man found voice. "My God, it is--"

The Factor touched his arm, interrupting him, and drew a picture from
his pocket--one but just now taken from that musty pile of books,
received so many years before. He showed it to the old man.

"Yes, yes," said the other, "that is he.... And the world buried him
forty years ago!"

Pierre, standing near, added with soft irony: "There are strange things
in the world. He is the gamester of the world. 'Mais' a grand comrade
also."

The music came waving back upon them delicately but the pilgrims were
fading from view.

Soon the watchers were alone with the glowing day.

THE CRIMSON FLAG

Talk and think as one would, The Woman was striking to see; with
marvellous flaxen hair and a joyous violet eye. She was all pulse and
dash; but she was as much less beautiful than the manager's wife as Tom
Liffey was as nothing beside the manager himself; and one would care
little to name the two women in the same breath if the end had been
different. When The Woman came to Little Goshen there were others of her
class there, but they were of a commoner sort and degree. She was the
queen of a lawless court, though she never, from first to last, spoke to
one of those others who were her people; neither did she hold commerce
with any of the ordinary miners, save Pretty Pierre, but he was more
gambler than miner,--and he went, when the matter was all over, and told
her some things that stripped her soul naked before her eyes. Pierre had
a wonderful tongue. It was only the gentlemen-diggers--and there were
many of them at Little Goshen--who called upon her when the lights were
low; and then there was a good deal of muffled mirth in the white house
among the pines. The rougher miners made no quarrel with this, for the
gentlemen-diggers were popular enough, they were merely sarcastic and
humorous, and said things which, coming t