the end.  Years ago, when I was a youngster, I yearned for fortune.  And I realised that I had it in me to get it quick by means of that crazy talent for figures you reckon is so wonderful.  I got the chance and jumped, for it.  But every step I took left me scared to the verge of craziness.  When I hit up against Hellbeam I got a desire to beat him that was irresistible, and I jumped into the fight with my heart in my mouth.  It was easy—­so easy.  Hellbeam was a babe in my hands.  I could play with him as a spider plays with its victim, and when, like a spider, I’d bound him with my figures, hand and foot, I was free to suck his blood till I was satiated.  I did all that, and then my nightmare descended upon me again.  You know how I fled with Hellbeam’s hounds on my heels.  I was terrified at the enormity of the thing I’d done.  I could have stood my ground and beaten him—­and them.  But moral cowardice overwhelmed me and drove me to these outlands.  God, what I suffered!  And after all I haven’t the certainty that I deserved it.”

Bat came back to his stump and stood against it while Standing passed a weary hand across his forehead.

“The happenings since then you know as well as I do.  I don’t need to talk of them.  I mean, how I met and married Nancy, when she was widow of that no-account McDonald feller, the editor of The Abercrombie Herald!”

Bat nodded.

“Yes, sure, I know, Les.  When you married Nancy an’ made her thirteen-year-old daughter—­your daughter.”

“Yes.  I’d almost forgotten.  Yes, there’s her girl, Nancy.  She’s still at school.  Well, anyway, you know, these things, all of ’em.  But what you don’t know is that you—­you Bat, old friend, are solely responsible for all the work that’s being done here.  You, old friend, are responsible that I’ve enjoyed seven years of something approaching peace of mind.  You, you with your bulldog fighting spirit, you with your hell-may-care manner of shouldering responsibility, and facing every threat, have been the staunch pillar on which I have always leant.  Without you I’d have gone under years ago, a victim of my own mental ghosts.  No, no, Bat,” he went on quickly, as the lumberman shook his head in sharp denial, “it’s useless.  I know.  Leaning on you I’ve built up around me the reality of that original dream, with the other things I’ve now lost, and with every ounce in me I’ve worked for its fulfilment.

“Well, what’s the logic of it all?” he continued, after a moment’s pause.  “Yes, it is the logic of it.  You may argue that for seven years I’ve been doing a big work and there’s no reason, in spite of what’s happened, that I should now abandon it all.  But there is.  And in your strong old heart you’ll know the thing I say is true—­if cowardly.  During seven years, or part of them, I’ve known a happiness that’s compensated for every terror I’ve endured.  Nancy’s been my guardian angel, and the boy, that was to be born, was the beacon light of my life.  My poor little wife has gone, and that beacon light, the son we yearned for, has been snuffed right out.  And in the shadows left I see only the groping hand of Hellbeam reaching out towards me.  In the end that hand will get me, and crush the remains of my miserable life out.  I know.  Just as sure as God, Hellbeam’s going to get me.”