Madison swept the sweat bead from his forehead with a trembling hand.  It was a lie—­a lie—­a lie!  He had taught them to say that—­but it was all bunk—­and all were fools!  He could laugh at them, jeer at them, mock at them, deride them—­they were his playthings—­and faith was his plaything—­and he could laugh at them all!

And again he raised his head to laugh; and again the laugh was choked in his throat, still-born—­Helena was straight!  To his temples went his twitching hands.  Anger raged upon him—­and died in fear.  Anger, for the instant maddening him, that he should lose her; rage in ungovernable fury that the game, his plans, the hoard accumulated, was bursting like a bubble before his eyes—­died in fear.  No, no; he had not meant to laugh or mock—­no, no; not that, not that!  What was this loosed titanic power that had done these things—­that had brought this change in Helena; that had brought a change in the Flopper, transforming the miserable, pitiful, whining thief into a man reaching out for decent things; that had wrought at least a physical metamorphosis in Pale Face Harry—­that had transfigured those three who, in their ugly, abandoned natures then, had hung like vultures on his words in the Roost that night!  What was this power that he was trifling with, that brought him now this cold, dead fear before which he quailed!  What was this something that in his temerity he had dared invoke—­that rose now engulfing him, a puny maggot—­that snatched him up and flung him headlong, shackled, before this nebulous, terrifying tribunal, where out of nothingness, out of a void, the calm, majestic features of the Patriarch took form and changed, and changed, and kept changing, and grew implacable, set with the stamp of doom.  What was it—­in God’s name, what was it brought these sweat beads bursting to his forehead!  Was he going mad—­was he mad already!

And then the cycle again—­doubt, anger, fear—­until his brain, exhausted, seemed to refuse its functions; and it was as though, heavy, oppressing, a dense fog shut down upon his mind and enveloped it; and now he walked as a man in great haste, hurrying, and now his pace was slow, uncertain.

And so he went on, following the little path that bordered the woods on one hand and the fields on the other; went on until he neared the village—­and then he stopped suddenly, and turned about.  Some one had called his name.

From the field, a man climbed over the fence and came toward him.  The man’s face was tanned and rugged, his form erect, and the sleeves rolled back above the elbows displayed browned and muscular forearms.  Madison stared at the man apathetically.  This was the farm of course where Pale Face Harry boarded, and this was Pale Face Harry—­but—­

“Doc,” said Pale Face Harry, and he shuffled his feet and looked down, “Doc, I got something I’ve been wanting to say to you for a week.”

Madison still gazed at him apathetically—­Pale Face Harry for the moment was as some unwarrantable apparition suddenly appearing before him.