He slept none that night, none the following day, and became pitifully thin and haggard. Loss of sleep and grief's steady gnawing had made him half-delirious. Hallucinations began to distress him. A dozen times he imagined he heard Tot's voice calling to him from the bluish-black depths of the lake. He imagined that he saw her ghost-white hand thrust above the water, and that it beckoned to him. Then came Mayfield's triumphant, taunting laugh, and he saw the lusterless blind eyes staring at him through a window---- "I must put an end to this," he told himself in a whisper, when night had come again. "I'll go to bed, and I'll go to sleep. Tomorrow I'll hunt for the money and my rifle. When I'm able to walk, I'll go to Conradsville, and from there on--on." He went to bed and he went to sleep. When he woke the next morning, he felt stronger, though his grief was as poignant as it had ever been. He determined that he would bear his burden bravely; Tot would want him to do that, if she could know. Seven hours he spent in a search for the money and his rifle, and found neither. Mayfield, he told himself, might have carried the money to the bottom of the lake with him. Thirty very long days went by. Winter had passed, and the first breath of spring had come. Puccoons and pale-green ferns were beginning to peep from the rich black earth in sheltered spots. The buds of the hickories were swelling, and squirrels were rioting among them. "Tomorrow I'll go," said Wolfe to himself. "I'll start early. With the help of a cane, I can walk pretty well." It was during the last of the sunset hour. He sat in a chair just inside the front doorway, watching the dull-gold sun without seeing it as it burned a hole through the fringe of jackpines that grew along the crest of the western mountain. Then he bent his head to his breast and began to think. He knew that the hardest good-by of his life was at hand. A little red ant that lived under the doorstep crawled up Wolfe's boot, up his leg, and to the back of his hand. Wolfe frowned, jerked up his head, brushed the insect away, and began to stare toward the sinking dull-gold sun again. Thanks to the little red ant, he saw a flicker of officer-blue in the distance! A fever of fear seized him. How relentless Whitney Fair was! Of course, Fair had sent this man after him--of course! He rose so abruptly that he overturned his chair, caught up a cane and a bundle that contained provisions, his spare clothing and the clothing that Tot, his wife, had left--he would never part with that, never--and rushed out by way of the back door. As rapidly as he could go he crossed the open space and entered the eastern half of Doe River Wilderness. At the edge of the thick forest, he paused long enough to fling out a hand toward the lake in farewell. [Illustration] When he had reached the crest of a ridge half a mile from the lake, he looked back. The man in officer-blue was entering the cabin by the front doorway.