now. They nearly lost me.
It takes us big, robust fellows off with particular ease and expedition.
You and I will take a hunting trip; it is winter; I will suffer some
unexpected exposure; you'll do what you can to save me, but medical
attention will come too late. It won't take two weeks altogether."

"If you're looking for pneumonia I know the place. When I left, ten days
ago, men were dying like flies. You won't need to go hunting it; it will
come hunting you."

"Out West somewhere, eh?".

"The Nevada desert. That's where I'm mining."

"Deserts are usually hot."

DeVoe shivered. "Not this one, at this season. It's a hell of a country,
Butler; five thousand feet elevation, biting winds, blizzards, and all
that. You just can't keep warm. But the danger is in the Poganip."

"The what?"

"The Poganip; what they call 'the Breath of Death' out there. It's a
sort of frozen fog peculiar to that locality."

"Then you accept my offer?"

Again DeVoe hesitated. "Are you really going to do it? Well then, yes.
If I don't take your money, I suppose you'll employ somebody else."

"Good! We'll leave to-morrow."

"Can you get your affairs in shape by then?"

"I don't want them in shape. Don't you understand?"

"I see." After a moment the younger man continued, "It's all very well
for us to plan this way--but I'm not sure we'll succeed in our
enterprise."

"Why not, pray?"

"Well, I dare say I'm a good deal of a rotter--I must be to go into a
thing like this--but I have a superstitious streak in me. Possibly it's
reverence; at any rate I believe there is a Power outside of ourselves
which appoints the hour of our coming and the hour of our going. I'm not
so sure you can pull this off until that Power says so."

Murray laughed. "Nonsense! What is to prevent my shooting myself at this
moment, if I want to?"

"Nothing, if you want to--but you don't want to. Why don't you want to?
Because that Power hasn't named this as your time. I don't make myself
very clear."

"I think I see what you're driving at, but you're wrong. We are masters
of our own destinies; we make our lives as full or as empty as we
choose. I have emptied mine of all it contained, and I don't consider
that I am doing any one an injury in disposing of what belongs alone to
me. Now we'll complete the details."

The speaker drew a blank note from his desk and filled it in.

It was with a very natural feeling of interest that Butler Murray
watched th