He looked anxiously into the Boy’s set face.

“I’m not saying the time was wasted,” he went on; “I reckon it was a good thing you came.”

“Yes, it was a good thing I came.”

“You’ve learned a thing or two.”

“Several.”

“Specially on the Long Trail.”

“Most of all on the Long Trail.”

The Colonel shut his eyes.  Maudie came and held a cup to his lips.

“Thank you.  I begin to feel a little foggy.  What was it we learned on the Trail, pardner?” But the Boy had turned away.  “Wasn’t it—­didn’t we learn how near a tolerable decent man is to bein’ a villain?”

“We learned that a man can’t be quite a brute as long as he sticks to another man.”

“Oh, was that it?”

* * * * *

In the night Maudie went away to sleep.  The Boy watched.

“Do you know what I’m thinking about?” the sick man said suddenly.

“About—­that lady down at home?”

“Guess again.”

“About—­those fellas at Holy Cross?”

“No, I never was as taken up with the Jesuits as you were.  No, Sah, I’m thinkin’ about the Czar.” (Poor old Colonel! he was wandering again.) “Did I ever tell you I saw him once?”

“No.”

“Did—­had a good look at him.  Knew a fella in Petersburg, too, that—­” He rested a moment.  “That Czar’s all right.  Only he sends the wrong people to Siberia.  Ought to go himself, and take his Ministers, for a winter on the Trail.”  On his face suddenly the old half-smiling, half-shrewd look.  “But, Lord bless you! ’tisn’t only the Czar.  We all have times o’ thinkin’ we’re some punkins.  Specially Kentuckians.  I reckon most men have their days when they’re twelve feet high, and wouldn’t stoop to say ‘Thank ye’ to a King.  Let ’em go on the Winter Trail.”

“Yes,” agreed the Boy, “they’d find out—­” And he stopped.

“Plenty o’ use for Head Men, though.”  The faint voice rang with an echo of the old authority.  “No foolishness, but just plain:  ’I’m the one that’s doin’ the leadin’—­like Nig here—­and it’s my business to lick the hind dog if he shirks.’” He held out his hand and closed it over his friend’s.  “I was Boss o’ the Big Chimney, Boy, but you were Boss o’ the Trail.”

* * * * *

The Colonel was buried in the old moose pasture, with people standing by who knew that the world had worn a friendlier face because he had been in it.  That much was clear, even before it was found that he had left to each of the Big Chimney men five hundred dollars, not to be drawn except for the purpose of going home.

They thought it was the sense of that security that made them put off the day.  They would “play the game up to the last moment, and see—­”