n the soft mud, and with each mile these marks
grew deeper and broader as the partly frozen earth softened.

The air of solemnity which had hung about the men for days, and which
lifted from time to time only temporarily, now silenced them again.
Indeed, had there been anybody present to observe, he doubtless would
have been impressed most of all with the unwonted soberness of the
wagon's occupants, a gravity strangely at variance with the rampant,
fecund season.

And the object of their journeying into this unknown world was in all
truth a matter for silence rather than speech; its influence was
toward deep and earnest meditation, to which the joyous, awakening
world could do no more than chant in a minor key a melancholy
accompaniment. Never did a soldier advancing upon a breach in the
enemy's breastworks more certainly confront the grinning face of
Death, than did this trio in their progress across the singing
prairie; but where the plaudits of the world spelled glory for the
one, the three in the wagon knew that for them Death meant oblivion,
extinction, a blotting out that must needs be utter and inevitable.

The thoughts of each dwelt upon some aspect of two scenes which had
happened only a brief fortnight previously. There had been a notable
convention of physicians in a city many miles to the east. One
delegate, a man young, slender, firm of jaw, his face shining with
zeal and the spirit which courts self-immolation, had addressed the
body. His speech had made a profound impression--after its first
effect of sensation had subsided--upon the hundreds gathered there,
who hearkened amazedly; but of those hundreds only two had been moved
to lay aside the tools of their calling and follow him.

And whither was he leading them? Into the Outer Darkness, each firmly
believed. For them the future was spelled _nihil_; for the world,
salvation--perhaps.

The inspired voice still rang in memory.

"Gentlemen, I repeat, it is a challenge.... The flag of the enemy is
hung up boldly, flauntingly, in every public place.... Are we to
permit this? Are we to sit idle and acknowledge ourselves beaten in
the great struggle against Death? No, no, no! The Nation--yea, the
whole civilized world--shrinks and shudders in terror before the sound
of one dread word--_tuberculosis_!

"Our professional honor--our personal honor as well, gentlemen--is at
stake. A solemn charge is laid upon us.... We must die if need be;
but we must con