We hastened after him to the big Kazima, a sort of clubhouse which each village of any size possesses, crawled in after him, and when our eyes grew accustomed to the dull, smoke-blackened, raftered interior, lighted only by a huge hole in the upper center over the fire pit through which the soft daylight streamed, we stood above the cause of his solicitude. Our chase was ended; for on the skins, at our feet, lay Laughing Jim. George knelt beside him, and ran his hand inside the blue shirt that was torn open across the chest, and then looked up at us. “Somethin’s happened to him,” he said, “feels to me as if he was all shot to pieces.” At the sound of his voice Laughing Jim opened his eyes a little wildly, then smiled as recognition crept into their clear, but pain-drawn, depths. “I’m going,” he croaked, with a queer, gasping effort. “You got here just in time. I--I---- Drink!” Bill Davis pulled our little emergency flask from his pocket, George lifted the wounded man up, and gave him a strong sup of the brandy, and it momentarily strengthened him. All our animosity was forgotten now, as we stood there rubbing shoulders with death, such is the queer awe and pity that assails us at sight of the mortally stricken regardless of their merits. “Who did it, Jim?” asked George, still supporting the dying man’s shoulders and head. “Mahoney. But I got him! He’s over there!” He rolled his eyes toward the dark corner of the Kazima, and with exclamations of surprise all of us, save George, hurried to the corner, struck matches, and looked. There lay Phil Mahoney, beyond all aid, dead. I threw my handkerchief over his face before we went back to George and Jim, on tiptoe, as if the sound of our footsteps on that beaten earth would ever matter to him. We gave Jim another draft of the brandy, and he feebly waved for silence. “Let me talk,” he said. “Not much time left. Been going out all day. I’ve never been any good. Gambler’s habit of sleeping days, awake nights. Took walk yesterday morning. Wanted to get close to birds and hear ’em sing. Mile above camp. Saw Phil Mahoney toting something toward boat. Acted queer. Didn’t see me. Got in boat and shoved off. Skirted opposite shore as if afraid being seen. ‘Funny,’ says I. ‘Wonder what that big, ugly devil’s up to?’ Forgot all about it and went back to my cabin, to clean up. Couldn’t find best shoes. Cussed some, and wondered what Siwash could have swiped them. Then, all of sudden, remembered Mahoney walked queer. So I----”