er germs, to put into the body of a sick man germs that
were the enemies of the plague germs--"

"And you can't see these germ-things, Granser," Hare-Lip objected, "and
here you gabble, gabble, gabble about them as if they was anything,
when they're nothing at all. Anything you can't see, ain't, that's what.
Fighting things that ain't with things that ain't! They must have
been all fools in them days. That's why they croaked. I ain't goin' to
believe in such rot, I tell you that."

Granser promptly began to weep, while Edwin hotly took up his defence.

"Look here, Hare-Lip, you believe in lots of things you can't see."

Hare-Lip shook his head.

"You believe in dead men walking about. You never seen one dead man walk
about."

"I tell you I seen 'em, last winter, when I was wolf-hunting with dad."

"Well, you always spit when you cross running water," Edwin challenged.

"That's to keep off bad luck," was Hare-Lip's defence.

"You believe in bad luck?"

"Sure."

"An' you ain't never seen bad luck," Edwin concluded triumphantly.
"You're just as bad as Granser and his germs. You believe in what you
don't see. Go on, Granser."

Hare-Lip, crushed by this metaphysical defeat, remained silent, and
the old man went on. Often and often, though this narrative must not be
clogged by the details, was Granser's tale interrupted while the boys
squabbled among themselves. Also, among themselves they kept up a
constant, low-voiced exchange of explanation and conjecture, as they
strove to follow the old man into his unknown and vanished world.

"The Scarlet Death broke out in San Francisco. The first death came on
a Monday morning. By Thursday they were dying like flies in Oakland
and San Francisco. They died everywhere--in their beds, at their
work, walking along the street. It was on Tuesday that I saw my first
death--Miss Collbran, one of my students, sitting right there before my
eyes, in my lecture-room. I noticed her face while I was talking. It had
suddenly turned scarlet. I ceased speaking and could only look at her,
for the first fear of the plague was already on all of us and we knew
that it had come. The young women screamed and ran out of the room. So
did the young men run out, all but two. Miss Collbran's convulsions were
very mild and lasted less than a minute. One of the young men fetched
her a glass of water. She drank only a little of it, and cried out:

"'My feet! All sensation has left them.'

"After