his hand and arm in a solution of carbolic and hot water,
carefully examining them to make sure there was no abrasion of
any kind. But despite his caution, a tiny cut so small that it
had escaped his searching, had come in contact with the infected
mucous membrane and blood poisoning had set in. And here he was,
lying in bed, given up by Doctor Bradley and the younger men the
older physician had called into consultation and who had tried in
vain to stem the spread of poison through his system. Martin was
going to die, and no power could save him. The irony of it! This
farm to which he had devoted his life was taking it from him by a
member of its herd.

Martin made a wry little grimace of amusement as he realized
suddenly that even at the very gate of death it was still on
life, his life, that his thoughts dwelt. In these last moments,
it was the tedious, but stimulating, battle of existence that
really occupied his full attention. He would cling to it until
the last snap of the thin string. This cavern of oblivion that
was awaiting him, that he must enter--it was black and now more
than ever his deep, simple irreligion refused to let fairy tales
pacify him with the belief that beyond it was everlasting
daylight. Scepticism was not only in his conscious thought but in
the very tissues of his mind.

He remembered how his own father had died on this farm--he had
had no possessions to think about; only his loved ones, his wife
and his children; but he had brought them here that they might
amass property out of Martin's sweat and the dust of the prairie.
Now he, the son, dying, had in his mind no thought of people, but
of this land and of stock and of things. And how strangely his