Meanwhile, the dog was obviously inviting his master to a scouting expedition among the trees and brushwood to the left of the cabin's front, and Granite was so puzzled by the animal's behavior that he paid no heed to Power during the next few seconds; moreover, the fact that Nancy had left a written message showed that, although something unusual might have occurred, it was not necessarily alarming. Then he heard a queer sort of sob, or groan, and, glancing at Power, saw that in his face which brought a dismayed question to his own lips. "God A'mighty, Mr. Power, what's got ye?" he cried. Power made no reply. He seemed as though stricken with a palsy. He absolutely reeled, and would have tumbled headlong had he not, by chance, staggered back against the jamb of the door. Granite caught him by the arm lest he should fall, and Nancy's letter dropped from his nerveless fingers, and fluttered to the ground. "Don't give way like that," urged the guide. "She ain't dead, anyhow. Has she left you bad news?" Power looked at the man as though he did not recognize him. A baleful light gleamed in his eyes. Had Willard been present then, it was not he who would have been the slayer, unless he contrived to be extraordinarily quick with his weapons. "She has gone," he said, in the monotone of tragedy; for there are moments in life when the voice loses its flexible notes, and mere speech becomes a mechanical effort. "Gone?" echoed Granite. "Wall, I allow she'll come back?" "No, she has left me forever. She says so." "What, in that theer bit o' writin'?" "Yes." "Mr. Power, air you joshin' me, er what?" Power drew a deep breath. The dizziness which had benumbed his faculties was passing, and fortunately so; for his sympathetic companion, despairing of obtaining any lucid statement from this dazed man, was stooping to pick up the letter. "No," he managed to say. "You must not read that. It is meant for me alone. But give it to me. I--I am afraid of falling. My head----" Vastly puzzled, the guide handed him the half-folded sheet of paper. The bald explanation that Mrs. Power had "left" her husband "forever" sounded like the wildest variety of moon-madness. In Granite's own phrase, he had never before clapped eyes on two sich genuwine love-birds as Nancy and Derry, not in all his born nateral, and to be told that one had deserted the other merely went to prove that the speaker had gone plumb crazy. For a time, indeed, he was convinced that Power was suffering from a slight sunstroke, because they had paddled nearly two miles while facing the sun, whose rays were reflected in a glowing path on the surface of the lake. Such attacks, though infrequent, were not unknown in that high region. When reaction set in, and Mrs. Power returned, the patient would become violently sick, and a few hours of complete rest would complete his cure.