as good as ever shared a blanket or split a loaf, though he was free of
any evil, and I failed of any good.... Well, there came a change. We
parted. We could meet no more; but who could have guessed this thing?
Yet, hear me--I am no enemy of Shon McGann, as let my deeds to you
prove.' And he paused again, but added presently: 'It's better you should
have come now than two years ago.

"And I had a fear in my heart, and to this asked him why. 'Because then
he was a friend of mine,' he said, 'and ill always comes to those who are
such.' I was troubled at this, and asked him if Shon was in Pipi Valley
yet. 'I do not know,' said he, 'for I've travelled long and far from
there; still, while I do not wish to put doubt into your mind, I have a
thought he may be gone. . . . He had a gay heart,' he continued, 'and
we saw brave days together.'

"And though I questioned him, he told me little more, but became silent,
scannin' the plains as we rode; but once or twice he looked at me in a
strange fashion, and passed his hand across his forehead, and a grey look
came upon his face. I asked him if he was not well. 'Only a kind of
fightin' within,' he said; 'such things soon pass, and it is well they
do, or we should break to pieces.'

"And I said again that I wished not to bring him into danger. And he
replied that these matters were accordin' to Fate; that men like him must
go on when once the die is cast, for they cannot turn back. It seemed to
me a bitter creed, and I was sorry for him. Then for hours we kept an
almost steady silence, and comin' at last to the top of a rise of land he
pointed to a spot far off on the plains, and said that you, father, lived
there; and that he would go with me still a little way, and then leave
me. I urged him to go at once, but he would not, and we came down into