Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/486

484 "You'll do more than a little, old chap."

"I hope so." Tempest's eyes shone suddenly, and his voice rang. "Lord! What eternal children we are! We'll build our mud-heaps to raise us up to conquer the stars until the end of time, never heeding how often they crumble under us." He laid his hand on Dick's shoulder. "Whatever you did or meant to do to me I owe it to you that I have taken hold of things again," he said. "I can't see yet what it is all for. I can't see why the innocent should suffer for the guilty, or why self should be such an eternal devil to fight. There seems injustice somewhere. But perhaps I'll see clearer in time. Till I do—I'll go on building mud-heaps."

"And when you do you'll conquer the stars."

But Dick's raillery was very friendly, for the boyishness, which would never die out of Tempest, touched the younger man, who was so infinitely older in many ways. And for an hour yet they smoked their pipes as they kept step up and down the beach and spoke of many things. But they did not touch on those private subjects again; and their words and their good-byes were casual on the shore in the morning when the breed in the stern of Dick's canoe held it against the bank, and Dick turned for a moment to give his hand to Tempest.

They did not weaken that hand-grip with words, although Dick had a jest for his lame foot as he clambered into the canoe. He turned once to see Tempest straight and tall on the shore. Then he went on paddling with slow, long strokes and the tobacco-smoke blowing out either side him. Tempest watched until the dazzle of light on the water hid him and the entrance to the Great Slave River lay near. Then he went along the beach, and flung himself down on the sand, looking out to the shoreless lake that ran blue against the blue sky. His eternal duties would call him up presently, and next week he would start his long patrol to the North by the ways up which Dick had come. But this warm golden hour of silence between earth and Heaven was his own.

Cicadas were chirping, and all across the lake sea-birds dipped and called. The air was full of the healthy smell from little far-off fires, and the light breeze helped his