They found him there the next morning, very wet, very cold, but no
longer hungry. He had apparently entered the cemetery gate--hoping,
perhaps, that it led to a house where there was no dog--and gone
blundering about in the darkness, falling over many a grave, no
doubt, until he had tired of it all and given up. The little body
lay upon one side, with one soiled cheek upon one soiled hand, the
other hand tucked away among the rags to make it warm, the other
cheek washed clean and white at last, as for a kiss from one of God's
great angels. It was observed--though nothing was thought of it at
the time, the body being as yet unidentified--that the little fellow
was lying upon the grave of Hetty Parlow. The grave, however, had
not opened to receive him. That is a circumstance which, without
actual irreverence, one may wish had been ordered otherwise.



THE NIGHT-DOINGS AT "DEADMAN'S"
A STORY THAT IS UNTRUE



It was a singularly sharp night, and clear as the heart of a diamond.
Clear nights have a trick of being keen. In darkness you may be cold
and not know it; when you see, you suffer. This night was bright
enough to bite like a serpent. The moon was moving mysteriously
along behind the giant pines crowning the South Mountain, striking a
cold sparkle from the crusted snow, and bringing out against the
black west the ghostly outlines of the Coast Range, beyond which lay
the invisible Pacific. The snow had piled itself, in the open spaces
along the bottom of the gulch, into long ridges that seemed to heave,