dead! Over
the graveyard of his past there was sweeping a mighty force that called
him, something that was no longer merely an urge and a demand but a
thing that was irresistible. He would go! Tomorrow--today--tonight--he
would begin making plans!

He watched the deluge as it came on with a roar of wind, a beating,
hissing wall under which the tree tops down in the edge of the plain
bent their heads like a multitude of people in prayer. He saw it
sweeping up the slope in a mass of gray dragoons. It caught him before
he had closed the door, and his face dripped with wet as he forced the
last inch of it against the wind with his shoulder. It was the sort of
storm Keith liked. The thunder was the rumble of a million giant
cartwheels rolling overhead.

Inside the bungalow it was growing dark as though evening had come. He
dropped on his knees before the pile of dry fuel in the fireplace and
struck a match. For a space the blaze smoldered; then the birch fired
up like oil-soaked tinder, and a yellow flame crackled and roared up
the flue. Keith was sensitive in the matter of smoking other people's
pipes, so he drew out his own and filled it with Brady's tobacco. It
was an English mixture, rich and aromatic, and as the fire burned
brighter and the scent of the tobacco filled the room, he dropped into
Brady's big lounging chair and stretched out his legs with a deep
breath of satisfaction. His thoughts wandered to the clash of the
storm. He would have a place like this out there in the mystery of the
trackless mountains, where the Saskatchewan was born. He would build it
like Brady's place, even to the rain-water tank midway between the roof
and the ground. And after a few years no one would remember that a man
named John Keith had ever lived.

Something brought him suddenly to his feet. It was the ringing of the
telephone. After four years the sound was one that roused with an
uncomfortable jump every nerve in his body. Probably it was McDowell
calling up about the Jap or to ask how he liked the place. Probably--it
was that. He repeated the thought aloud as he laid his pipe on the
table. And yet as his hand came in contact with the telephone, he felt
an inclination to draw back. A subtle voice whispered him not to
answer, to leave while the storm was dark, to go back into the
wilderness, to fight his way to the western mountains.

With a jerk he unhooked the receiver and put it to his ear.

It was not McDowell who answer