He measured the words off slowly. He was not looking at the book. Perhaps he saw fleet birds winging their way beyond his vision. His listeners divined something of the kind.
He had reached another hard place. He picked up the book and looked at it and replaced it on his knee. Again he was speaking nearer or farther than those just about him.
They loved—but the story we cannot unfold....
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
"Jo," he said, handing the book to Kelsy, "you know the poem. Finish it for the boys."
Kelsy finished it. But they did not hear him. The poem to them mattered little. The man who had read it meant much.
"What's the name of that there poem?" Buck Thompson asked.
"Immortality."
"Immortality—that means that this here vale of tears is not all that's comin' to us?"
"That's it. We are only here a little while at best. Any good thing therefore that we can do, let's do it. We won't come back this way, you know."