The repellent contraction of Anthony's heart expanded in a light and careless curiosity, youthful contempt mingled with the gayety of his morning mood, and he hastened his steps until he had again overtaken his inquisitor. “That's a good cane you've got,” he observed of the stout shaft and rounded head. Its owner grasped it by the lower end, and swung the head against his hand. “Lead,” he pronounced somberly. “It would crumble your skull like an egg.” Again fear stirred vaguely in Anthony: the entire absence of emotion in the sanguinary, the dull, matter-of-fact voice were inhuman, tainted with madness; the total detachment of those deliberate words had been appalling. “I thought,” he continued, “that you might have been Alfred Lukes, but you're too young.” As he pronounced that name his grasp tightened whitely about the lead knob. The conviction seized Anthony that it was fortunate he was not the individual in question. “You want Alfred?” he asked in an attempted jocularity. “He murdered my boy,” the other answered simply. “Him and another. They asked James into a boat to go fishing. Boys will always go fishing; he was only eleven.” He stopped in the middle of the road, and produced a small package folded in oiled silk. It proved to be a derringer, of an old-fashioned model, with two, short black barrels, one atop the other. “Loaded,” he said, “to put against his face.” Then he rewrapped the weapon and returned it to its place of concealment. “I've been looking for Alfred Lukes for nineteen years,” he recommenced his dogged progress, “in trains and saloons and stores. Nineteen years ago James was found in the river.” He was silent for a moment, then, “One eye was torn out,” he added in his weary voice. He turned his blank and terrible gaze upon Anthony, upon the sparkling morning. The derringer dragged slightly upon his coat, the stick--that stick which could crush a skull like an egg--made its trailing signature in the dust. A mingled loathing and pity took possession of Anthony; he recoiled from the corroding and secret horror of that nineteen year Odyssey of a torturing and impotent spirit of revenge, from the infinite black tide that had swept over the stooping figure at his side, the pitiless memory that had destroyed its sanity. “It was on Sunday; James had on his nice blue suit and a new, red silk necktie... they found it knotted about his throat... as tight as a big man could make it.” A sudden impulse overcame Anthony to run, to leave far behind him this sinister, animated speck on the sunny road, under the dusty branches burdened with ripening fruit, thrilling with the bubbling notes of birds. But, as his gaze fell again upon his companion, he saw only an old man, gaunt with suffering, hurrying toward the noon. A deep, cleansing compassion vanquished the dread, and, spontaneously, he spoke of his own lighter affairs, of California, his destination.