"He—he can give you everything—" Dickie said shakily.
"I've been waiting"—she said—"I didn't know it until lately. But I've been waiting, so long now, for—for—" She closed her eyes and lifted her soft sad mouth. It was no longer patient.
That night Dickie and Berg lay together on the hide before the fire, wrapped in a blanket. Dickie did not sleep. He looked through the uncurtained, horizontal window, at the stars.
"You've got everything else, Hilliard," he muttered. "You've got the whole world to play with. After all, it was your own choice. I told you how it was with me. I promised I'd play fair. I did play fair." He sighed deeply and turned with his head on his arm and looked toward the door of the inner room. "It's like sleeping just outside the gate of Heaven, Berg," he said. "I never thought I'd get as close as that—" He listened to the roar of Hidden Creek. "It won't be long, old fellow, before we take her down to Rusty and bring her back." Tears stood on Dickie's eye-lashes. "Then we'll walk straight into Heaven." He played with the dog's rough mane. "She'll keep on looking at the stars," he murmured. "But I'll keep on looking at her—Sheila."
But Sheila, having made her choice, had shut her eyes to the world and to the stars and slept like a good and happy child.