There was no welcome now for him in the ragged rows of lights in those uncurtained windows that overlooked the streets Gibbs had named in the very prodigality of his patriotism—Sherman Street, Farragut Street, Porter Avenue, Lincoln Boulevard; he only had his boy, his memory of Marian, and his terrible loneliness for companions. Would the spring never come, would the winter never lose its hold on that frozen land! Sometimes in sheer desperation he went down to Gibbs and Arling at the Golden West Saloon, where the man of science, when not too drunk, played strategic games of checkers with the ex-editor; and where the ex-editor mixed hot whiskies for the man of science; and the frost bound loafers who still called Grant City home, congregated sparsely. But at last the snows melted from the crests of the ridges, patches of prairie sod became visible and spread down the slopes, as the sun crept back day by day toward its summer solstice. One raw spring day just at evening, Stephen drove into Grant City. It had been raining and he was wet to the skin, but cold and chilled as he was, his bronzed cheeks burnt with an unwonted colour, while his dark eyes were brilliant with an unusual light. He drove not to his home, but straight to Gibbs's saloon. Hearing him, the general came to the door. “Hullo, Steve, want me?” he said cheerfully. “Can I get you to go to the house with me, and put out my horse?” asked Landray. He spokely stiffly over the turned-up collar of his coat, and he was conscious that the words that issued from his lips had an unfamiliar sound; he scarcely recognized his own voice. “Why, what's the matter, Steve?” demanded Gibbs in some surprise. “I'm not feeling just right, that's all.” The general vanished from his open door, but reappeared almost immediately with his hat. “You ain't feeling right?” he repeated as he climbed in beside Landray. “What's wrong with you, Steve?” “I seem to have taken cold,” said Stephen, still stiffly and thickly over the upturned collar of his coat. “I want to get to bed as quick as possible.” “I guess that's where you should have been for the past hour,” said the general, surveying him critically. “You ain't got the least notion of taking care of yourself, Steve, you're doing yourself a rank injustice, exposing yourself this way!” When they drove in at the barn Gibbs had to help him from the buggy or he would have fallen to the ground; he led him to a sheltered spot, then he drove the horse in out of the rain and tied it. “I'll come back and take out; but first I'm going to get you to bed, Steve,” he said. “I'm afraid—I think I'm going to be sick,” said Landray, and now his teeth were chattering. “Why, Steve, you're wringing wet!” cried Gibbs, placing an arm about him to support him as he led him away to the house. “I've driven in from Hazlets in the rain.” Hazlets was a good ten miles out on the prairie. “You shouldn't have done it! You take no sort of care of yourself.”