had neither fear nor weakness in it.
When they had done he turned and took her reverently in his arms and
kissed her before them all; then she went and stood beside Gale and the
red wife who was no wife, and said, simply:

"I am very happy."

The old man stooped, and for the first time in her memory pressed his
lips to hers, then went out into the sunlight, where he might be alone
with himself and the memory of that other Merridy, the woman who, to
him, was more than all the women of the world; the woman who, each day
and night, came to him, and with whom he had kept faith. The burden she
had laid upon him had been heavy, but he had borne it long and
uncomplainingly; and now he was very glad, for he had kept his covenant.

The first word of the wedding was borne by Father Barnum, who went
alone to the cabin where the girl's father lay, entering with
trepidation; for, in spite of the pleas of justice and humanity, this
stony-hearted, amply hated man had certain rights which he might choose
to enforce; hence, the good priest feared for the peace of his little
charge, and approached the stricken man with apprehension. He was there
a long time alone with Stark, and when he returned to Gale's house he
would answer no questions.

"He is a strange man--a wonderfully strange man: unrepentant and
wicked; but I can't tell you what he said. Have a little patience and
you will soon know."

The mail boat, which had arrived an hour after the Mission boat, was
ready to continue its run when, just as it blew a warning blast, down
the street of the camp came a procession so strange for this land that
men stopped, eyed it curiously, and whispered among themselves. It was
a blanketed man upon a stretcher, carried by a doctor and a priest. The
face was muffled so that the idlers could not make it out; and when
they inquired, they received no answer from the carriers, who pursued
their course impassively down the runway to the water's edge and up the
gang-plank to the deck. When the boat had gone, and the last faint
cough of its towering stacks had died away, Father Barnum turned to his
friends:

"He has gone away, not for a day, but for all time. He is a strange
man, and some things he said I could not understand. At first I feared
greatly, for when I told him what had occurred--of Necia's return and
of her marriage--he became so enraged I thought he would burst open his
wounds and die from his very fury; but I talked a long, long