ting, shrieking for mercy from the living eyes in the
half-dead face. When the murderer raised his axe, he saw the soul's
pitiful cowardice and how it shrank. The axe came crashing down. There
was no need to strike twice; he fell limply backward, throwing his
arms out wide--and there was an end of El Dorado and of all his dreams
of avarice.

The murderer, as if suddenly afraid of his own handiwork, without
turning his head, hurried on across the portage through the forest,
and was quickly lost to sight.

Scenting the blood, the four gray huskies, one by one, came out from
the cabin, where they seemed to have been asleep, and the others
followed them. They came slowly over to where their tyrant was lying,
and sniffed his body. They did it cautiously, for as yet they had not
lost their fear of him; he might awake and belabour them for
disturbing his last long rest.

In falling his legs had shot from under him into the fire, scattering
the embers, so he lay full length, with the red gash in his forehead,
his arms spread out like a cross, and his face, in the inverted image,
turned earthwards, gazing down on Granger and the Last Chance River
with startled, unseeing eyes.

The mirage began to fade and float cloudwards, drifting up-river above
the tree-tops higher and higher, till it vanished in the west.

Of all that he had witnessed Granger had heard no sound--there lay the
chief terror of it. Like the handwriting on the wall in Babylon, it
had taken place in silence. The crime which he had so often
contemplated, and planned, had been transacted before his eyes; the
person who had done the deed had kept his back turned toward him, but
in his attire was strangely like himself--and instead of being
gratified he was filled with loathing and hatred for the slayer.

In the person of another he had seen the vileness which he had been
seeking for himself, and was horrified. He knew that, had he had his
chance, he might have taken Spurling's life in just some such way as
that--he had imagined how he would do it many times. And now that it
was accomplished, he was sick with pity for the murdered man.

To one thing he had instantly made up his mind, that, if this should
prove to be more than a fancy of delirium--the miraged portrayal of a
villainy which had actually occurred--he would track the assassin as
he had tracked Spurling, till the last ounce of his strength failed
him, that Spurling might be avenged. Perhaps, in the