of it pounded in his blood. Two-Fisted Fingers they had called him
then, and he was Two-Fisted Fingers in this hour with Kent. Twice
Father Layonne came to the head of the cell alcove, but turned back
when he heard the low and steady murmur of Kent's voice. Nothing did
Kent keep hidden, and when he had finished, something that was like the
fire of a revelation had come into Fingers' face.

"My God!" he breathed deeply. "Kent, I've been sitting down there on my
porch a long time, and a good many strange things have come to me, but
never anything like this. Oh, if it wasn't for this accursed flesh of
mine!"

He jumped from his chair more quickly than he had moved in ten years,
and he laughed as he had not laughed in all that time. He thrust out a
great arm and doubled it up, like a prizefighter testing his muscle.
"Old? I'm not old! I was only twenty-eight when that happened up there,
and I'm forty-eight now. That isn't old. It's what is in me that's
grown old. I'll do it, Kent! I'll do it, if I hang for it!"

Kent fairly leaped upon him. "God bless you!" he cried huskily. "God
bless you, Fingers! Look! Look at that!" He pulled Fingers to the
little window, and together they looked out upon the river, shimmering
gloriously under a sun-filled sky of blue. "Two thousand miles of it,"
he breathed. "Two thousand miles of it, running straight through the
heart of that world we both have known! No, you're not old, Fingers.
The things you used to know are calling you again, as they are calling
me, for somewhere off there are the ghosts of Lost City, ghosts--and
realities!"

"Ghosts--and hopes," said Fingers.

"Hopes make life," softly whispered Kent, as if to himself. And then,
without turning from the window, his hand found Fingers' and clasped it
tight. "It may be that mine, like yours, will never come true. But
they're fine to think about, Fingers. Funny, isn't it, that their names
should be so strangely alike--Mary and Marette? I say, Fingers--"

Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Both turned from the window as
Constable Pelly came to the door of the cell. They recognized this
intimation that their time was up, and with his foot Fingers roused his
sleeping dog.

It was a new Fingers who walked back to the river five minutes later,
and it was an amazed and discomfited dog who followed at his heels, for
at times the misshapen and flesh-ridden Togs was compelled to trot for
a few steps to keep up. And Fingers did no