“God bless you, I hope that you may always make enough for yourself.”

“And you bet I will, and for you, too.  I hate like the mischief to see you go away.  Couldn’t think any more of you if we were twin brothers.  And you think a good deal of me, too, don’t you, Hank?”

“My boy,” said DeGolyer, leaning over and placing his hand on the young fellow’s shoulder, “I have never speculated with my friendship, and I don’t know how valuable it is, but all of it that is worth having is yours.  You make friends everywhere; I don’t.  You have nothing to conceal, and I have nothing to make known.  To tell you the truth, you are the only real friend I ever had.”

“Look out, now.  That sort of talk knocks me; but say, don’t be away any longer than you can help.”

“I won’t!” He rode a short distance, turned in his saddle, waved his hand and cried:  “God bless you, my boy.”

CHAPTER III.

All was darkness.

Delays and difficulties of traveling, together with his own determination to do the work thoroughly, prolonged DeGolyer’s absence.  Nearly three months had passed.  Evening was come, and from a distant hill-top the returning traveler saw the steeple of Ulmata’s church—­a black mark on the fading blush of lingering twilight.  A chilly darkness crept out of the valley.  Hungry dogs barked in the dreary village.  DeGolyer could see but a single light.  It burned in the priest’s house—­a dark age, and as of yore, with all the light held by the church.  The weary man liberated his mule on a common, where its former companions were grazing, and sought the house of his friends.  The house was dark and the doors were fastened.  He knocked, and a startling echo, an audible darkness, came from the valley.  He knocked again, and a voice cried from the street: 

“Who’s that?”

“Helloa, is that you, my boy?”

There was no answer, but a figure rushed through the darkness, seized DeGolyer, and in a hoarse whisper said: 

“Come where there’s a light.”

“Why, what’s the matter, Henry?”

“Come where there’s a light.”

DeGolyer followed him to a wretched place that bore the name of a public-house, and went with him into a room.  A lamp sputtered on a shelf.  Young Sawyer caught DeGolyer’s hands.

“I have waited so long for you to come back to this dreadful place.  I am all alone.  Uncle is dead.”

DeGolyer sat down without saying a word.  He sat in silence, and then he asked: 

“When did he die?”

“About two weeks after you left.”

“Did he kill himself?”

“Good God, no!  Why did you think that?”

“Oh, I didn’t really think it—­don’t know why I said it.”

“He was sick only a few days, and the strangest thing has come to light!  He seemed to know before he was taken sick that he was going to die, and he spent nearly a whole day in writing—­writing something for me—­and the strangest thing has come to light.  I can hardly realize it.  Here it is; read it.  Don’t say a word till you have read every line of it.  Strangest thing I ever heard of.”