"Oh, but things--other things--don't look a mite foggy to me," cried
the boy.

"'Course they don't! Why should they? They didn't to me--once,"
retorted the man impatiently. "But now--" Again he left a sentence
unfinished.

"But how soon did--did you get--all blind, after that?" stammered the
boy, breaking the long, uncomfortable silence that had followed the
old man's unfinished sentence.

"Oh, five or six months--maybe more. I don't know exactly. I know it
came, that's all. I guess if 't was you it wouldn't make no difference
HOW it came, if it came, boy." "N-no, of course not," chattered Keith,
springing suddenly to his feet. "But I guess it isn't coming to me--of
course't isn't coming to me! Well, good-bye, Uncle Joe, I got to go
now. Good-bye!"

He spoke fearlessly, blithely, and his chin was at a confident tilt.
He even whistled as he walked down the hill. But in his heart--in his
heart Keith knew that beside him that very minute stalked that
shadowy, intangible creature that had dogged his footsteps ever since
his fourteenth birthday-gift from his father; and he knew it now by
name--The Great Terror.




CHAPTER II