once did the thought come that I might be vanquished. I put out my finger and rocked the weapon to and fro. It had been planted well. Then I grasped the handle and strove to draw it out. What a hold it had! In the end I had to get on the table with my knees and take both hands to force the blade loose. A silly and jealous anger now seized me at the power here shown. I took some unused paper, and made a bundle as near the size of my manuscript as I could, and placed it on the table. Then I set my teeth, gripped the knife, and lifting my arm drove downward furiously. The stroke fully equaled Buck Steele's, as a quick investigation showed, and brought a warm glow of animal satisfaction. For the first time since I began life at the Lodge, before I went to bed I dropped the heavy bar of wood into the brackets on either side the door, thus making it absolutely secure. The windows remained open, as usual, but I placed my revolver under my pillow. The next ten days would have been idyllic had I been entirely at peace. As it was, I managed to absorb a great deal from them which strengthened and comforted. Each was a miraculous procession of perfect hours. I had laid down some simple rules of conduct which I followed strictly. I arose early, bathed, breakfasted, took a course in calisthenics which brought muscles into action mere tramping would not reach except faintly, and did some garden work. The rush of recent events had interfered with my horticultural notions lamentably, and now it was too late for anything except corn and beans. I rested an hour after dinner, and then walked until dusk. The quest of the life-plant had long ago become mechanical, and I never stirred abroad without the consciousness that I might find it this time. But I had come to believe of late that I had no need for it now. Perhaps 'Crombie had diagnosed my case wrong--had taken too much for granted, and had banished a man with an ulcerated throat, or a bleeding gum. For the first time I remembered my throat _was_ sore at that interview! Could it be possible? I had never felt better than at present, when the longest walks and the hardest pulls over the steep knobsides were play. I was abed every night by nine o'clock. My poise was speedily regained under this regimen. Vigor seemed to flow into me, and I must confess to a certain pride in my superb physical condition. Then one pearl-gray morning which promised a flawless day, I flung open the door to find a piece of paper fluttering in my face. Right on a level with my eyes it hung and writhed in the twilight breeze, as if it was a live thing suffering from the bright new horse-shoe nail which impaled it. With finger and thumb I disengaged the soiled, flimsy sheet. It was a torn portion of wrapping paper, and bore a brief message; a formless scrawl traced with a blunt lead pencil. "THES HERE HOLERS AINT HELTHY FOR SITY FELLRS PLANE TALK IS BES UNDERSTUD"