my summer home! I'm going to live like a lord—while I'm living."

He examined the ground and found that it was rich and could be penetrated easily, even to the very foot of the mountain. "I'll just get my spade," he remarked, "as I ain't got nothing else to do." In deliberate slowness he returned up the divide, and got the spade from his retreat, then brought it to the cove. Selecting a spot near the channel of the dried-up torrent, he began to dig, relieved to find that he did not strike rock.

"I guess," he said, stopping to lean on his spade as he stared at the mountain, "the earth just got too full of granite and biled over, but was keerful to spew it upwards, so's to save as much ground as it could, while relieving its feelings."

Presently the earth on his blade began to cling from dampness. "When I digs a well," he remarked boastingly, "what I want is water, and that's what I gets. As soon as it's deep enough I'll wall her up with rocks and take the longest drink that man ever pulled off, that is to say, when it was nothing but common water. They ain't nothing about water to incite you to keep swallowing when you have enough. Of a sudden you just naturally leggo and could drown in it without wanting another drop. That's because it's nature. Art is different. I reckon a nice clean drinking-joint and a full-stocked bar is about the highest art that can stimulate a man. But in nature, you know when you've got enough."

After further digging he added, "And I got about enough of THIS! I mean the mountains and the plains and the sand and the wind and the cave and the cove—" he wiped away the dripping sweat and looked at the sun. "Yes, and of you, too!" He dropped the spade, and sat down on the heap of dirt. "Oh, Lord, but I'm lonesome! I got plenty to say, but nobody to listen at me."

He clasped his great hands about his knee, and stared sullenly at the surrounding ramparts of red and brown granite, dully noting the fantastic layers, the huge round stones that for ages had been about to roll down into the valley but had never started, and others cut in odd shapes placed one upon another in columns along the perpendicular wall. The sun beat on the long matted hair of his bared head, but the ceaseless wind brought relief from its pelting rays. He, however, was conscious neither of the heat nor of the refreshing touch.

At last he rose slowly to his towering legs and picked up the spade. "You're a fool, Brick Willock," he said harshly. "Ain't you got that well to dig? And then can't you go for your kaig and bring it here, and carry it back full of fresh water? Dinged if there ain't enough doings in your world to furnish out a daily newspaper!" He began to dig, adding in an altered tone: "And Brick, HE says—'Nothing ain't come to the worst, as long as you're living,' says Brick!"

He was proud of the well when it was completed; the water was cold and soft as it oozed up through clean sand, and the walls of mud-mortised rocks promised permanency. One did not have to penetrate far into the bottom-lands of that cove to find water which for unnumbered years had rushed down the mountainside in time of rain-storms to lie, a vast underground reservoir, for the coming of man. Willock could reach the surface of the well by lying on his stomach and scooping with his long arm. He duly carried out his program, and when the keg was filled with fresh water, it was time for dinner.

After a cold luncheon of sliced boiled ham and baker's bread, he returned to the cove, where he idled away the afternoon under the shade of tall cedar trees whose branches came down to the ground, forming impenetrable pyramids of green.

Stretched out on the short buffalo-grass he watched the white flecks follow one another across the sky; he observed the shadows lengthening from the base of the western arm of the horseshoe till they threatened to swallow up him and his bright speck of world; he looked languidly after the flights of birds, and grinned as he saw the hawks dart into round holes in the granite wall not much larger than their bodies—those mysterious holes perforating the precipice, seemingly bored there by a giant auger.

"Go to bed, pards," he called to the hawks. "I reckon it's time for me, too!" He got up—the sun had disappeared behind the mountain. He stretched himself, lifting his arms high above his head and slowly drawing his fists to his shoulder, his elbows luxuriously crooked. "One thing I got," he observed, "is room, plenty! Well—" he started toward the divide for his upward climb, "I've lived a reasonable long life; I am forty-five; but I do think that since I laid down under that tree, I have thought of everything I ever done or said since I was a kid. Guess I'll save the future for another afternoon—and after that, the Lord knows what I'm going to do with my brain, it's that busy."

The next day he began assorting the contents of his granite home, moving to the task with conscientious slowness, stopping a dozen times to make excursions into the outside world. By diligent economy of his working moments, he succeeded in covering almost two weeks in the labor of putting his house into order. His bedroom was next to the barricade that separated the long stone excavation from the bottomless abyss. Divided from the bedroom by an imaginary line, was the store-room of provisions. The cans and boxes were arranged along the floor with methodical exactitude. Different varieties of fruit and preserves were interspersed in such fashion that none was repeated until every variety had been passed.

"I begins with this can of peaches," said Willock, laying his finger upon the beginning of the row—"then comes apples, pears, plums; then peaches, apples, pears, plums; then peaches, apples, pears, plums; then peaches—blest if I don't feel myself getting sick of 'em already.... And now my meats: bacon, ham. My breadstuffs: loaves, crackers. My fillers: sardines, more sardines, more sardines, likewise canned tomatoes. Let me see—is it too much to say that I eats a can of preserves in two days? Maybe three. That is, till I sickens. I begins with peach-day. This is Monday. Say Thursday begins my apple-days. I judge I can worm myself down through the list by this time next month. One thing I am sot on: not to save nothing if I can bring my stomach to carry the burden with a willing hand. I'll eat mild and calm, but steadfast. Brick Willock he says, 'Better starve all at once, when there's nothing left, than starve a little every day,' says Brick. 'When it's a matter of agony,' says he, 'take the short cut.'"

In arranging his retreat, he had left undisturbed the wagon-tongue, since removing it from the end of the floor for a more secure barricade; it had stood with several of the sideboards against the wall, as if Brick meditated using them for a special purpose. Such was indeed his plan, and it added some zest to his present employment to think of what he meant to do next; this was nothing less than to make a dugout in the cove.

To this enterprise he was prompted not only by a desire to vary his monotonous days, but to insure safety from possible foes. Should a skulking savage, or, what would be worse, a stray member of the robber band catch sight of him among the hills, the spy would spread the news among his fellows. A relentless search would be instituted, and even if Willock succeeded in escaping, the band would not rest till it had discovered his hiding-place. If they came on the dugout, their search would terminate, and his home in the crevice would escape investigation; but if there was no dugout to satisfy curiosity, the crevice would most probably be explored.

"Two homes ain't too many for a character like me, nohow," remarked Brick, as he set the wagon-tongue and long boards on end to be drawn up through the crevice. "Cold weather will be coming on in due time—say three or four months—and what's that to me? a mere handful of time! Well, I don't never expect to make a fire in my cave, I'll set my smoke out in the open where it can be traced without