The date thrilled Rawley, aged twenty-six: 1858 was the year his great-grandmother had inscribed in the book. To Rawley it seemed almost as remote as the Stamp Act or the Mexican War. The thought that Grandfather King, away back in 1858, had been old enough to join the Missouri Mounted Volunteers--even to have been made a sergeant in his company and to make for himself a reputation as an Indian fighter--gave the old man a new dignity in the eyes of his grandson. It seemed strange that Grandfather King was still alive and could talk of those days. The book itself was strangely contradictory in appearance. While the outside was worn and scuffed as if with much usage, the inside crackled faintly a protest against unaccustomed handling. The yellowed leaves clung together in layers which Rawley must carefully separate. Now and then a line or two showed faint penciled underscores; otherwise the book did not look as if it had been opened for many, many years. Nowhere was it thumbed and soiled by the frequent reading of a man living under canvas or the open sky. “Looks to me like the old boy has simply passed the buck,” Rawley grinned. “Maybe he felt as if some one in the family ought to read it. His mother had it all marked for him, too; wanted to give him a good start-off, maybe. No, sir, the old book itself is pinning it onto King, of the Mounted! Mother must be right, after all, and Grandfather never had enough religion to talk about. But he sure gave me a Sunday-school talk; funny how a book can stand up and call you a liar.” He smiled as he closed the book, whimsically shaking his head over the joke. Then, just to make sure that his guess was correct, Rawley opened the Bible again. No, there could be no mistake. Crackly new on the inside--though yellowed with age--badly worn on the outside, the book itself proclaimed the story of long carrying and little reading. The evidence against the sincerity of the old man’s pious admonitions was conclusive. Rawley laid the Bible down for a further consideration and took up the worn old diary. Here, too, Grandfather King had betrayed a certain lack of sincerity. Reading the faded entries, Rawley decided that King, of the Mounted, must have been an impetuous youth who had learned caution with the years. Dates, arrivals, departures,--these remained. Incidents, however, had for the most part been neatly sliced out with a knife. And with a stubborn disregard for the opinion of later readers the stubs of the pages elided had been left to tell of the deliberate mutilation of the record. So Rawley read perfunctorily the dry record of obscure scouting trips, and the names of commanders long since dead and remembered only in the records.