At last throughout the land no sound of animal voice was heard, for winter bound all things firm and white. Another cycle was complete; yet, almost ere the record could be made, there appeared, moving far in the distance, a black triangle. Passing swiftly, with the sound of wings and calling voices, there sprang anew in all things animate a mixed feeling of gladness and unrest, which was the spirit of returned spring. Thus twice the cycle of the seasons passed, and again the sun of early spring, shining bright, set the tiny snow-streams singing. It glistened over the prairie on snow-drift and frost; it lit up the few scattered shingled roofs of settlers newly come; and shone in at the open door of a rough cabin we know, touching without pity the faces of the two men who watched its rise. Shining low, even with the prairie, it touched in vivid contrast an oblong mound of fresh earth, heaped up target distance from the cabin door. The mound had not been there long; neither snow or rain had yet touched it; it was still strange to the men in the doorway, who saw it vividly now, at time of sunrise. Though thus early, each man sat idly smoking, an open book reversed on the knee. De Young first broke the silence. "We must do something, or else decide to do nothing about Clark's mail." He shifted in his seat, looking away from the open door. "I don't know--whether--it would be kinder to tell them or not." A coughing fit shook Morris, and answering, a twitch as of pain tightened the corners of his companion's eyes. Minutes passed, and Morris sat limply in his chair, before he answered, "I thought at first we'd better write; now it seems different. Let's wait until we go back." Neither of the men looked at the other. They seldom did now; it was useless pain. Filled with the incomparable optimism of the consumptive, neither man realized his own condition, but marked the days of his friend. Morris, unbelieving, spoke of his friend's return; yet, growing weaker each day himself, spoke in all hope and conviction of his future work, recording each day his mode of successful treatment, despite interruptions of coughing which left him breathless and trembling for minutes. De Young saw, and in pity marvelled; yet, seeing, and as a physician knowing, he not for a moment applied the gauge to himself. Nature, in sportive mood, commands the Angel of Death, who with matchless legerdemain, keeps the mirror of illusion, unsuspected, before the consumptive's eyes; and, seeing, in derision the satirist smiles.