ine, and they
moved faintly.

"Yes, lover, yes, the first of June. Don't fail me, honey, don't fail
me."

We parted, buoyant with hope, in an ecstasy of joy. She was for me, this
beautiful, tender girl, for me. And the time was nigh when she should be
mine, mine to adore until the end. Always would she be by my side; daily
could I plot and plan to give her pleasure; every hour by word and look
and act could I lavish on her the exhaustless measure of my love. Ah!
life would be too short for me. Could aught in this petty purblind
existence of ours redeem it and exalt it so: her love, this pure sweet
girl's, and mine. Let nations grapple, let Mammon triumph, let
pestilence o'erwhelm; what matter, we love, we love. O proud, happy me!

* * * * *

I got back to the claim. Everything was going merrily, but I felt little
desire to resume my toil. I was strangely wearied, worn out somehow. Yet
I took up my shovel again with a body that rebelled in every tissue.
Never had I felt like this before. Something was wrong with me. I was
weak. At night I sweated greatly. I cared not to eat.

* * * * *

"Well," said the Prodigal, "it's all over but the shouting. From my
calculations we've cleaned up two hundred and six thousand dollars.
That's a hundred and three between us four. It's cost us about three to
get out the stuff; so there will be, roughly speaking, about
twenty-five thousand for each of us."

How jubilant every one was looking--every one but me. Somehow I felt as
if money didn't matter just then, for I was sick, sick.

"Why, what's the matter?" said the Prodigal, staring at me curiously.
"You look like a ghost."

"I feel like one, too," I answered. "I'm afraid I'm in for a bad spell.
I want to lie down awhile, boys ... I'm tired.... The first of June,
I've got a date on the first of June. I must keep it, I must.... Don't
let me sleep too long, boys. I mustn't fail. It's a matter of life and
death. The first of June...."

Alas, on the first of June I lay in the hospital, raving and tossing in
the clutches of typhoid fever.

CHAPTER XXI

I was lying in bed, and a heavy weight was pressing on me, so that, in
spite of my struggles, I could not move. I was hot, insufferably hot.
The blood ran boiling through my veins. My flesh was burning up. My
brain would not work. It was all cobwebs, murky and stale as a
charnel-house. Yet at times were stran