shortest message of comfort. And not having exhausted
the space on the Flat, he and Robert, before night closed
in, made a gigantic O. K., fifteen yards from top to
bottom, and in marks that were fifteen feet through.
I had telegraphed my great news to Haliburton on
Monday night. Tuesday night he was at Skowhegan.
Thursday night he was at No. 9. Friday he and Rob.
stretched their cambric. Meanwhile, every day I slept.
Every night I was glued to the eye-piece. Fifteen
minutes before the eclipse every night this weird dance
of leaps two hundred feet high, followed by hops of
twenty feet high, mingled always in the steady order I
have described, spelt out the ghastly message: "Show `I
understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

And every morning, as the eclipse ended, I saw the
column creep along to the horizon, and again, as the duty
of opening day, spell out the same:--

"Show `I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat."

They had done this twice in every twenty-four hours
for nearly two years. For three nights steadily I read
these signals twice each night; only these, and nothing
more.

But Friday night all was changed. After "Attention,"
that dreadful "Show" did not come, but this cheerful
signal:--