child pointed out. I can
see that it is neat and comfortable. The sun is going down,
and the windows on this side are red as blood. So is all the
snow between this place and that. I shall wait until night.
I feel no fear, no remorse; and yet, if the child had not
had _his_ eyes----

* * * * *

Meanwhile the men who were waiting for Dixon's return became a little
restive, as the minutes dragged along and he did not appear. Even
those ready means of beguiling time common to men of their stamp--the
telling of highly-seasoned and _apropos_ stories interspersed with
frequent libations, began to pall. Some of them stole away to their
neglected dinners, returning shortly with a renewed sense of wonder as
they still found him absent.

And the stark figure lay there in their midst, itself for the time
forgotten in the stories and conjectures its presence had evoked, the
faint smile frozen on its unshaven lips, the half-open eyes fixed
seemingly upon the door with a terrible intentness.

At last one of the men who was near a window overlooking the street,
said:

"He's comin'!" and a moment or two later, "I swear, he's paler'n the
dead man his self!"

"Mebbe it's his long-lost brother!" suggested the vagabond Shanks, who
was given to pleasantries of this sort.

"He was always that a way!" declared another. "They's men as can't
look at a corpse without turnin' white around the gills, an' Dixon's
one on 'em! I've seen him a-fore. An' he ain't no coward, neither!"

"No! _He_ ain't no coward!" chorused the others, and a moment or two
later Dixon pushed open the door and came in. Every man's eye was
drawn to his face, but he saw no one. He looked straight before him
into space.

"Buckey," he said, addressing that worthy in one of his many
capacities, that of undertaker, "I knew this--man. Make arrangements
to have the--the body brought to my house, at once, and to have the
funeral from there to-morrow morning."

He paused a moment, a kind of click in his throat, and then added,
"Let every man and woman who knows me be present."

He turned and went out, and they saw him, with his head sunk on his
breast, walking homeward.

At the appointed hour the small front room of Dixon's cottage was
filled with men and women, drawn thither in part through deference to
his expressed desire, in part through curiosity excited by the rumors
which had filled the air since the day