fe seemed to be pouring
out of me and running into the ground."

* * * * *

Hartwell drew a long breath that lifted his heavy shoulders, and
then let them fall again. He shifted a little and faced more
squarely the scattered, silent company before him. The darkness had
made us almost invisible to each other, and, except for the
occasional red circuit of a cigarette end traveling upward from the
arm of a chair, he might have supposed us all asleep.

"And so," Hartwell added thoughtfully, "I naturally feel an interest
in fellows who are going home. It's always an experience."

No one said anything, and in a moment there was a loud rap at the
door,--the concierge, come to take down Bentley's luggage and to
announce that the cab was below. Bentley got his hat and coat,
enjoined Hartwell to take good care of his _perroquets_, gave each
of us a grip of the hand, and went briskly down the long flights of
stairs. We followed him into the street, calling our good wishes,
and saw him start on his drive across the lighted city to the Gare
St. Lazare.

_McClure's_, March 1907

_The Enchanted Bluff_

We had our swim before sundown, and while we were cooking our supper
the oblique rays of light made a dazzling glare on the white sand
about us. The translucent red ball itself sank behind the brown
stretches of corn field as we sat down to eat, and the warm layer of
air that had rested over the water and our clean sand-bar grew
fresher and smelled of the rank ironweed and sunflowers growing on
the flatter shore. The river was brown and sluggish, like any other
of the half-dozen streams that water the Nebraska corn lands. On one
shore was an irregular line of bald clay bluffs where a few
scrub-oaks with thick trunks and flat, twisted tops threw light
shadows on the long grass. The western shore was low and level, with
corn fields that stretched to the sky-line, and all along the
water's edge were little sandy coves and beaches where slim
cottonwoods and willow saplings flickered.

The turbulence of the river in spring-time discouraged milling, and,
beyond keeping the old red bridge in repair, the busy farmers did
not concern themselves with the stream; so the Sandtown boys were
left in undisputed possession. In the autumn we hunted quail through
the miles of stubble and fodder land along the flat shore, and,
after the winter skating season was ove