“Hush!” replied Crandall, fearful lest the wounded man would hear the exulting tone which grated on his own ears as nothing had ever before done. But not minding the admonition, Lansing dismounted, and striking a match held it close to the man’s face. It was pale and cold, and the half-opened eyes were glazed. They did not even reflect the light made from the match, but from the partly opened mouth a tiny stream of half-congealed blood seemed to be still flowing down over the beard.
“That’s him, and it’s a pretty good day’s work we have done by earning that reward,” said Lansing, coolly, as the match went out.
Somehow, though, as Crandall lay awake through the night, within a few yards of the body, to keep the wolves from it so that it would be unmarred in the morning when they would lash it to a horse and take it into the settlements for identification, he wondered why Lansing could sleep so soundly. As for himself, the rigid form, covered with only a saddle-blanket, lying where the snow was red instead of white, was always before his eyes, even when he closed them.
CONSCIENCE MONEY
By Geraldine Bonner
In January the darkness settles early in Paris. It was not yet five, and it was closing in, soft and sudden. This particular night it was rendered denser by the light rain that was falling—one of those needle-pointed, noiseless rains that come in the midst of a Paris winter and persist for days.
Celia Reardon came home through it, letting her skirts flap against her heels. The package of sketches she had not sold to the dealer on the Rue Bonaparte was under her arm. From beneath the dark tent of her umbrella she looked straight before her down the vista of the street, glistening and winking from its lamps and windows. The light, striking clearly on her face, revealed it as small, pale, and plain, with a tight line of lip, and eyes sombrely staring at nothing. She made no attempt to lift her sodden skirt or avoid puddles.
Walking heavily forward through the early dusk, she was advancing to meet the giant Despair.
This was on her mind, and, to the observant eye, in her face. Celia knew of only one way to evade the approaching giant. It was by the turn that led to the river. Many people, in their terror at his approach, took this turn. She had seen them in the morgue in the days when she was new to Paris, and went about seeing the sights like a tourist.
After the dealer on the Rue Bonaparte had given her back the sketches, telling her it was impossible to sell them, she had turned downward toward the quais, and came out there, under the skeleton trees, where the book-stalls line the wall. The dark, slumberous current of the river swept by under the gemmed arches of its bridges. It was carrying away all the foul and useless things of the day’s tumultuous life, all going helter-skelter, pell-mell, to the oblivion of the sea.