the old
man, Jim. They didn't break him--not much."

"There are giants in the world still," said Jim, his own eyes full. He
knew now his father and himself, and he knew the meaning of all the bitter
and misspent life of the old days. He and his father were on a level of
understanding at last.

"Are you a giant?" asked Nancy, peering up into her grandfather's eyes.

The old man laughed, then sighed. "Perhaps I was once, more or less, my
dear," saying to her what he meant for the other two--"perhaps I was; but
I've finished. I'm through. I've had my last fight."

He looked at his son. "I pass the game on to you, Jim. You can do it. I
knew you could do it as the reports came in this year. I've had a
detective up here for four years. I had to do it. It was the devil in me.
You've got to carry on the game, Jim; I'm done. I'll stay home and potter
about. I want to go back to Kentucky, and build up the old place, and take
care of it a bit--your mother always loved it. I'd like to have it as it
was when she was there long ago. But I'll be ready to help you when I'm
wanted, understand."

"You want me to run things--your colossal schemes? You think--?"

"I don't think. I'm old enough to know,"

WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY

The arrogant Sun had stalked away into the evening, trailing behind him
banners of gold and crimson, and a swift twilight was streaming over the
land. As the sun passed, the eyes of two men on a high hill followed it,
and the look of one was like a light in a window to a lost traveller. It
had in it the sense of home and the tale of a journey done. Such a journey
this man had made as few have ever attempted and fewer accomplished. To
the farthermost regions of snow and ice, where the shoulder of a continent
juts out into the northwestern arctic seas, he had travelled on foot and
alone, save for his dogs, and for Indian guides who now and then
shepherded him from point to point. The vast ice-hummocks had been his
housing; pemmican, the raw flesh of fish, and even the fat and oil of
seals had been his food. Ever and ever through long months the everlasting
white glitter of the snow and ice, ever and ever the cold stars, the
cloudless sky, the moon at full, or swung like a white sickle in the sky
to warn him that his life must be mown like grass. At night to sleep in a
bag of fur and wool, by day the steely wind, or the air shaking with a
filmy powder of frost; while the illimitably distant sun