Page:Frank Packard - The Miracle Man.djvu/261

 I'd go back to the old hell, and I'd go down and out again. Say, it ain't worth it, there's nothing in it. I ain't throwing you, Doc—I just blows out of here with me trap closed. Say, look at me, Doc—don't you get what I mean?"

And then Madison burst into a peal of wild, strange laughter; and, as though no man stood before him, started on along the path—and Pale Face Harry sidled out of his way and stared after him.

"For—for God's sake, Doc," he called out, stammering, "what's the matter? "

But Madison made no answer. He heard Pale Face Harry call out behind him; in a subconscious, mazed way, he sensed the other following him, gropingly, hesitantly, for a few yards, then hold back—and finally stop.

The path swerved. Madison went on—blindly, mechanically, as though, once set in motion, he must go on. Some ghastly, unnatural thing was clogging his brain; not only in a mental way, but clogging it until there was physical hurt and pain, an awful tightness—something—if he could only reach it with his fingers and claw it away! There was black madness here, and a pain insufferable—a damnable impotence, robbing him of even the power, the faculty to think or reason, or to make himself understand in any logical degree the meaning or the cause of this thing that sent his brain swirling sick.

He halted. His lips were working; the muscles of his face quivered. And suddenly, snatching his