“Quite a scheme, don’t you think, old chap?  I like you.  I don’t mind saying I think a lot of you, and there isn’t any reason on earth why you shouldn’t go on living in my shoes.  There’s no moral objection.  No one will miss me.  I was the black sheep back in England—­younger brother and all that—­and when I had to choose between Africa and Canada, I chose Canada.  An Englishman’s pride is the biggest fool thing on earth, Keith, and I suppose all of them over there think I’m dead.  They haven’t heard from me in six or seven years.  I’m forgotten.  And the beautiful thing about this scheme is that we look so deucedly alike, you know.  Trim that mustache and beard of yours a little, add a bit of a scar over your right eye, and you can walk in on old McDowell himself, and I’ll wager he’ll jump up and say, ’Bless my heart, if it isn’t Conniston!’ That’s all I’ve got to leave you, Keith, a dead man’s clothes and name.  But you’re welcome.  They’ll be of no more use to me after tomorrow.”

“Impossible!” gasped Keith.  “Conniston, do you know what you are saying?”

“Positively, old chap.  I count every word, because it hurts when I talk.  So you won’t argue with me, please.  It’s the biggest sporting thing that’s ever come my way.  I’ll be dead.  You can bury me under this floor, where the foxes can’t get at me.  But my name will go on living and you’ll wear my clothes back to civilization and tell McDowell how you got your man and how he died up here with a frosted lung.  As proof of it you’ll lug your own clothes down in a bundle along with any other little identifying things you may have, and there’s a sergeancy waiting.  McDowell promised it to you—­if you got your man.  Understand?  And McDowell hasn’t seen me for two years and three months, so if I might look a bit different to him, it would be natural, for you and I have been on the rough edge of the world all that time.  The jolly good part of it all is that we look so much alike.  I say the idea is splendid!”

Conniston rose above the presence of death in the thrill of the great gamble he was projecting.  And Keith, whose heart was pounding like an excited fist, saw in a flash the amazing audacity of the thing that was in Conniston’s mind, and felt the responsive thrill of its possibilities.  No one down there would recognize in him the John Keith of four years ago.  Then he was smooth-faced, with shoulders that stooped a little and a body that was not too strong.  Now he was an animal!  A four years’ fight with the raw things of life had made him that, and inch for inch he measured up with Conniston.  And Conniston, sitting opposite him, looked enough like him to be a twin brother.  He seemed to read the thought in Keith’s mind.  There was an amused glitter in his eyes.