al hayloft, nor how long he lay there.
It was one confused mass of pains and dreams and fantastic shapes. Then
the fever must have burned out, for he awoke one night with a clear
brain. Then he slept again.

On awakening next morning and crawling out, he saw the sun shining on
the snow-tipped peaks of the mountains. He had dreamed during the night
of his mother and Virginia and Nina, and the dream had impressed him
deeply. His haggard face was covered with a short beard; his clothes
were dirty, and some rents were getting large. Yes, he had reached the
bottom. He could go no further. He was a tramp--a dirty tramp. He had
got to the end of his rope. He would reach the mountains which he still
loved, and there on some cliff he would lie down and die. He would do
it--would do it!

All that day he walked. He asked not for food. He wanted nothing from
any man. Alone he had come into the world, alone he would leave it. His
face was set and hard. Up the mountain road he went, past farmhouse and
village, up, farther up, until he reached a valley that looked like one
he knew, but there was no town there, nothing but a level stretch of
bench-land and a stream coursing down the lower part of the valley.
Groves of pines extended over the foothills up towards the peaks. Up
there he would go. Under the pines his bones would lie and bleach.

He left the wagon road, and followed a trail up the side of the hill.
The sun was nearing the white mountain peaks. An autumn haze hung over
the valley and made the distance dim and blue. The odor from the trees
greeted him, and recalled memories of the time when, full of life and
hope, he had roamed his native pine-clad hills. He was nearing home,
anyway. The preacher had said that dying was only going home. If there
was a hereafter, it could be no worse than the present; and if death
ended all, well, his bones would rest in peace in this lone place. The
wolf and the coyote might devour his flesh--let them--and their night
howl would be his funeral dirge.

Far up, he went into the deepest of the forest. The noise of falling
waters came to him as a distant hymn. He sat on the ground to rest,
before he made his last climb. Mechanically, he took from his pocket a
small book, his testament--his sole remaining bit of property. He opened
it, and his eyes fell on some lines which he had penciled on the margin,
seemingly, years and years ago. They ran as follows:

"'Tis sorrow builds the shining l