The story had been as gray as a report of statistics,—­so many places visited, so much time consumed.  The men smoking cigars, lounging on cushioned seats in the tepid summer air, had listened to it unimpressed, as one listens to the reading of minutes of a gathering long past.  This simple sentenced breathed into it life.  The magnitude of the undertaking sprang up across the horizon of their comprehension.  They saw between the mile-post markings of Sam Bolton’s dry statements of fact, glimpses of vague, mysterious, and terrible deeds, indistinct, wonderful.  The two before them loomed big in the symbolism of the wide world of men’s endurance and determination and courage.

The darkness swallowed them before the group on the veranda had caught its breath.  In a moment the voices about the cannon raised in greeting.  A swift play of question and answer shot back and forth.  “Out all the year?” “Where?  Kabinikagam?  Oh, yes, east of Brunswick Lake.”  “Good trip?” “That’s right.”  “Glad of it.”  Then the clamour rose, many beseeching, one refusing.  The year was done.  These men had done a mighty deed, and yet a few careless answers were all they had to tell of it.  The group, satisfied, were begging another song.  And so, in a moment, just as a year before, Dick’s rich, husky baritone raised in the words of the old melody.  The circle was closed.

     “There was an old darky, and his name was Uncle Ned,
     And he lived long ago, long ago—­”

The night hushed to silence.  Even the wolves were still, and the giddes down at the Indian camp ceased their endless quarrelling.  Dick’s voice had all the world to itself.  The men on the Factory veranda smoked, the disks of their cigars dulling and glowing.  Galen Albret, inscrutable, grim, brooded his unguessable thoughts.  Virginia, in the doorway, rested her head pensively against one arm outstretched against the lintel.

     “For there’s no more work for poor old Ned,
     He’s gone where the good darkies go.”

The song finished.  There succeeded the great compliment of quiet.

To Virginia it was given to speak the concluding word of this episode.  She sighed, stretching out her arms.

“‘The greatness of my people,’” she quoted softly.

THE END