The Exile of The Lariat

Front matter

THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT

BY

HONORE WILLSIE Author of “The Enchanted Canyon,” “Judith of the Godless Valley,” “Still Jim,” “The Heart of the Desert,” etc.

Chapter 1

THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT

CHAPTER I

CHRISTMAS

SO the fine adventure had failed. Not but what Hugh knew that on the morrow he would begin to plan another and equally fine adventure. Yet he and Fred and old Red Wolf were as deeply depressed as though all the fossil remains of Wyoming had been destroyed when the slide had crushed the newly exposed body of the giant dinosaur. To be sure, Red Wolf, after the first shock of failure had passed, had tried to tell Hugh of a certain fabulous cliff dwelling full of bones, sacred to the mysterious origins of the Sioux tribe. But Hugh, disappointed and bereft, would not listen. He gave orders to break camp and the start for home was made two hours after the south slope of the mountain had jealously recovered the remains of that gigantic memory of the past.

The mountain bordered the extreme west line of the Old Sioux Tract. The Roaring Chief river paralleled the west line of the Tract, fifteen miles to the east. Between lay a rugged upheaval of mountains and canyons, deep now in December snows.

It was mid-morning when Hugh led the way out of the camp under the lee of the mountain, southeastward into the wild valley that lay between the fossil peak and the flat-topped plateau known chiefly as the haunt of wild horses. Save for occasional gnarled cedar clumps, the brilliant orange and red sides of the peak and the plateau were barren. Even the snow had been unable to cling to those steep, hard walls. But the floor of the valley was covered with quivering aspens whose pastel-green trunks and delicate gray boughs were set too thick to permit the passage of a rider. Hugh led the little caravan along the rough snowy space that remained open between the wall of the plateau and the aspen grove.

The going was extremely rough Hugh sat tense in the saddle, spurring his horse, Fossil, over rock heaps and through drifts as though he found mental easement in doubling thus the difficulties of the trail. Fred Allward, the little gray-bearded man who drove the freight wagon, and old Red Wolf, driving the sheep wagon, huddled in their mackinaws, swore at the mules and glanced askance at Hugh.

Hugh, in spite of the tensity of his seat, rode with the easy assurance of one bred to the saddle. He showed thin and muscular even through his mackinaw and corduroy riding breeches. A round beaver skin cap, pulled low, hid all his hair save a thick chestnut lock that blew across his forehead. His face was long and thin like his body, with high cheek bones and a long jaw line that showed sharply beneath his ears. There were lines around his gray eyes, drawn there by sun strain, by irritation and by humor. It was by no means a handsome face—though it clearly showed a fine intelligence. His mouth alone was beautiful. It was full curved and sensitive; a curiously ardent mouth to dwell in so fine-drawn a face. Hugh was in the thirtieth year of his age.

It was three o’clock when he led the way out of the narrow valley into a wider one, blue with snow and treeless save for a grove of spruce a mile to the north. Hugh headed directly for this grove, and Fred sighed with relief and lighted his pipe.

Hugh, too, suddenly conscious of the unbelievable beauty about him, relaxed a little in the saddle. A world of blue sky and snow and distant heaven-kissing peaks Even the spruce trees, as he led toward them, showed a true, though darker, blue, against the snow. The great bronze cones, massed in the higher boughs of the trees, gave the only variety to the great monotone.

At the edge of the grove, Hugh turned in the saddle. “Let’s make camp, boys!” he called

Fred pulled his mules to their haunches so suddenly that Red Wolf’s team bumped their noses on the tailboard of the freight wagon. Red Wolf grunted, swung his mules clear and leaped over their flinging hind legs to the ground. He began to unhitch at once while Fred built the fire in the little stove in the sheep wagon and Hugh, with his gun over his arm, followed new rabbit tracks that led into the grove.

It was dusk when the three men crowded into the sheep wagon to eat supper. It was as snug within as the cabin of a tiny ship. There were bunks at one end of the wagon, a little stove and kitchen fittings at the other. In the middle, a narrow table that lifted against the frame of the canopy when not in use. When all the fried rabbit had been devoured and the third round of coffee begun, Hugh broke the silence by saying, “Well, I’m sorry I went loco this morning, boys. But that was the most nearly perfect specimen I’ve ever seen, and it was nothing but fool carelessness that lost him to us.”

“My carelessness, mostly,” grunted Fred, draining his coffee cup, then taking a huge bite of plug. “You’d think I’d have learned how to shore up a wall after thirty years of mining.”

“An autopsy isn’t going to bring back the dinosaur,” sighed Hugh. “We’ll get back to Fort Sioux and outfit for prospecting Lost Basin. The snows won’t get in there before February.”

Red Wolf, his lean, wrinkled, bronze face concentrated above the cigarette he was rolling, gave no apparent heed to these comments. But when he had lighted the cigarette he looked thoughtfully at Hugh.

“Sioux Injuns,” he said, “know heap more ’bout Old Sioux Tract than whites do.”

Hugh returned the old Indian’s look with sudden interest. “Does that mean you’ve got a story to tell me, Red Wolf?”

The old Sioux continued to stare at Hugh. He and the young scientist had been friends since Hugh’s childish days of arrow-head collecting. But even at that, it was obvious that Red Wolf was wondering whether or not to speak. Fred jammed another cedar knot into the stove, piled the dishes in a pan, heaped the pan high with snow and set it on a red-hot lid. Then he established his feet on the hearth, took another bite of plug and waited. Finally Red Wolf said, in his husky, carefully modulated voice:

“Your Uncle Bookie, he owns Old Sioux Tract, but he never use it. Great Spirit won’t let ’em. You know why?”

Hugh shook his head “Uncle Bookie’s been as secret with me about the Tract as he has with every one else.”

“That’s all bunk!” exclaimed Fred “Everybody knows the Old Sioux Tract is mixed up in Bookie’s mind with Jimmie Duncan and the cattle wars of the eighties. Some of us always did think Bookie knew a lot about Jimmie’s disappearance.”

“O dry up, Fred!” growled Hugh, as he lighted his pipe “Uncle Bookie was a little wild as a young fellow, but he’d never be morbid about it. Fact is, I think he’s as proud of the notches on his gun as he is of The Lariat.”

“A little wild!” snorted Fred. “Say, Hughie, you young fellows that have always put Bookie down as a gentle old has-been would drop dead if you could see that man’s man as he was in the old days. He come out here full of Harvard education and everybody laughed at him. But before he’d been here five years, he’d settled the cattle war at the point of his gun, helped himself to what land he wanted from the old Frisco gang he’d rid out and settled down to ranch life. Just how he did it, or how many notches he carries on that old six-shooter of his, only Bookie knows.”

Hugh nodded. “I’ve always known that. Nevertheless I always thought his feeling against any use being made of the Old Sioux Tract had something to do with an old love affair.”

“You’re crazy, Hughie! No woman’s influence could last that long with a he-man, like Bookie.”

Hugh shrugged his shoulders, thought of Jessie, and turned to Red Wolf, who was listening patiently.

“Why don’t the Great Spirit let Uncle Bookie use the Tract, Red Wolf?” he asked

“This valley,” said the Sioux, “run ten miles over to river canyon.”

“I know,” nodded Hugh.

“All Injuns of the world,” Red Wolf went on, “Great Spirit borned them in this valley, by river. Long, long time ago, before any white man was born on earth the Great Spirit, he made a few Injuns and put ’em in this valley and showed ’em trail lead to cave, above river. ‘Injuns,’ said Great Spirit, ‘you live there. You stay there. You be safe. You have many children. You rule earth, if you stay here and no fight. No fight yourselves. When one Injun first fight other Injun then world be full of trouble for all Injuns.’”

Hugh listened with kindling interest. Fred’s bearded face was expressionless.

“Injuns had many, many children,” Red Wolf went on. “Soon cave pretty near full of Injuns. But they never fight. Pretty happy. Then, one day, young Injun, he made bow and arrow, first one ever made on earth. He make mistake and shoot other boy. That start terrible fight. All Injuns take sides, make bows and arrows, kill each other till only one Injun man, one Injun squaw left. And they bleed much. Then Great Spirit, he heap mad. He drive out man and woman. He break up trail to cave. He say no Injun ever can come back. He put Devil Beast in to watch cave. Devil Beast he eat any Injun that come back to cave. Injuns, they never had home since. They no can have home till some one kill the Devil Beast, take him out of cave. Then Injuns they come back to cave, have many children, rule earth.”

“Has any one ever seen the Devil Beast, Red Wolf?” asked Hugh.

“Blood curse on any Injun ever try to get down to cave,” replied the Sioux evasively.

Hugh eyed his old friend thoughtfully. “What do you suppose that Devil Beast looks like, Red Wolf?”

Red Wolf shook his head “I don’t know. But old, old chief told my father he look like stone devil, slide cover up this morning.”

Hugh lifted his head excitedly “Lord, Red Wolf, why haven’t you told me this before?”

“We never dig up devil look like this before,” replied the Indian, as if the answer were final.

“Naturally not,” said Hugh. “One doesn’t go out and dig up a Triceratops every morning before breakfast. Show me where this cave is, Red Wolf.”

The old Sioux scowled and rolled another cigarette before he replied.

“You get that Stone Devil uncovered, ready to move out of mountain. Great Spirit send slide, take him back. All Injuns but me they heap much afraid of Stone Devils. Now me heap afraid.”

“Maybe it’s meant for Indians to be afraid,” said Hugh. “But also, it’s evidently meant that the white man must take that Devil out of the cave. You let me have a look at him, old boy”

“Maybe it’s just naturally unlucky, Hughie,” Fred spoke cautiously. “Must be some kind of bad medicine connected with it because the Indians never talk about it to the whites. This is the first time I ever heard of it.”

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Hugh, “as if there were any reason why an Indian ever should tell a white anything!”

Red Wolf nodded “Whites, heap big liars, always laugh at Injuns. All but Hughie.”

“Go on, you big red man!” shouted Fred. “Did you ever have a better friend than me?”

“He, a better friend,” replied Red Wolf, pointing at Hugh. Then he added anxiously, “You not afraid?”

“Not a bit,” returned Hugh. “We’ll camp on the canyon edge tomorrow evening. Come on! Let’s get to bed and have an early start.”

They covered the ten snow-packed miles before dusk the next afternoon. The valley sloped rapidly toward the river, so speed was possible despite the difficulties of the trail. All signs of trees, even of sage brush, disappeared before they reached the end of the day’s journey. They made the night camp in a shallow draw which opened into the river canyon.

The moon rose before supper was ready, and Hugh, having hobbled Fossil to the mutual satisfaction of himself and the horse, stood at the canyon end of the draw, staring down at the vague black tracing of the river below. He had little doubt that Red Wolf’s story was founded upon some actual tragedy of the past and all the scientist in him was on tip-toe with interest. Somewhere beneath the keen, fossil-hunting paleontologist which was the Hugh his wife and friends knew, there might have been a Hugh as ardent, that night, as his sensitive mouth suggested. Yet, Hugh himself was unconscious of the fact, for though thrilled by the beauty of the scene, he was wishing, not that Uncle Bookie, or Jessie, his wife, were sharing the wonder of the night with him. He was wishing that he were sufficiently the artist to reproduce the magic of this fossil country for his report on this the most tantalizing and so far the most disappointing of his expeditions.

Considering his claim that he never had been in the cave, Red Wolf showed a surprising accuracy of knowledge as to the best method of reaching that place of mystery.

“Can’t climb down,” he said that evening in reply to Hugh’s query. “Cave maybe fifty feet down and under.Can’t see from top. You have let us lower you down, then you have swing yourself under See?”

Hugh nodded. “That new one-inch manila will come in right.”

Fred grunted. “You’ve got more enthusiasm over stone birds than I have, Hughie.”

“You’d risk it for a mine discovery, without turning a hair, Fred,” chuckled Hugh.

“Right!” agreed Fred, “but not for Injun bones.”

Nevertheless, the next morning when the three men crept to the edge of the river canyon and peered over at the receding wall, Fred insisted that his be the privilege of making the initial trip. Hugh, his eyes bright and eager, laughed at him.

“I’m the Columbus of this expedition, Fred! Here, ease this knot under my shoulder blade. I wouldn’t miss being the first down for a thousand dollars.”

“You’re risking a good deal on an Injun’s pipe dream,” insisted Fred. “And supposing there is a jinx on the place like he says.”

Red Wolf stared at Fred impersonally, then turned to Hugh

“You got your hammer?”

“Yes, inside my coat. I’ll use the pick to help fend me from the wall. Come on, boys, lower away Snub to the wagon axle when I shout.”

Hugh seated himself on the icy edge of the brim which was still slippery in spite of Fred’s efforts to roughen it with his axe. Then he slid slowly out into space, turning as he did so to face the canyon wall. This receded gently but decidedly, so that by the time he had been lowered twenty feet he was almost beyond arm reach of its smooth red face. He gave himself a gentle push, calling to the men to let the rope out rapidly. By the time he had reached a black opening in the menacing red wall, he was oscillating gently back and forth.

“Snub her, quick, Fred!” he shouted. He worked his long body pendulum-like now until the gentle oscillation had increased to a wide stroke that carried him far out above the sickening depths below, then well into the door of the cave. He flung his pick axe into the opening and grasped the side of the orifice, slid for a painful moment, then, a little white and breathless, stood firmly within the cave. He untied the rope and looped it over a black cedar log that projected into the doorway, then he looked about him.

The light of the rising sun flooded the cave. First he saw a level stone floor, littered with human bones, with arrow heads and stone axes; a red floor with bones ghastly white, and in pathetically entangled heaps, telling of death throes horrible to contemplate. From the embattled floor Hugh’s eyes lifted to the wall of the cave, which was perhaps a hundred feet deep but which did not, at that, stretch beyond the rays of the sun. And when his eyes had fallen on the rear wall, he gave a low exclamation and forgot the tragic story at his feet as though it did not exist.

At the rear of the cave, ten feet above the floor, was a projecting mass of stone that the merciless red light of the sun pricked out in a horror of detail that instantly accounted for Red Wolf’s tale of fear and mystery. A gigantic bony head—the head of a horned toad magnified to the proportions of an elephant—a head with gaping, sagging lower jaw, armored with enormous teeth, with horned snout lifted as if it sniffed perpetually after an ever present enemy, with cavernous eye sockets, that glowered with horrible simulation of vision upon the scene of ancient carnage.

Hugh paused beneath the terrible skull long enough to observe the broken remains of an ancient altar that lay on the floor, then with infinite care he clambered up to examine the marvelous discovery. After a few moments of ecstatic exploration, he went back to fetch the pick. With infinite care he then prospected the entire rear wall of the cave and in a short time had satisfied himself that just beneath the surface of the rock lay the remains of a dinosaur whose rarity and perfection surpassed any of his previous discoveries. Conscious finally of the increasing cold as the sun deserted the cave, he returned to the entrance and knotted the rope under his arms. Then only did he note that a skeleton, clad in an old overcoat, sat crouched within the shadow of the opening.

He knelt hastily, and with great care examined the clothing. His face was troubled when he had finished, and he stood for a time in anxious thought before shouting to Fred and Red Wolf to pull him up. He was entirely absent-minded as he spiraled upward and made the difficult scramble over the edge quite automatically.

“My Gawd, Hughie,” shouted Fred, when the young man finally stood panting beside him, “I hope you discovered free gold to pay for the scare you give me and Red Wolf.”

“It’s a wonder, Fred!” said Hugh, seriously. “A wonder! A triceratops, without a doubt.”

“I suppose that means something to you!” snorted Fred. “How about me and the Injun?”

Hugh turned to Red Wolf“You were right, old man. It’s the same kind of a stone devil that we lost under the slide, only a good deal bigger and with a perfect skull, which the other didn’t have. We’ll get him out of there, all right.”

Red Wolf scratched his head, thoughtfully. “You see many dead Injuns down there? You see anything else?”

“How do you mean, anything else?” demanded Hugh quickly. The Indian shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

“What’s the idea?” asked Fred, suspiciously.

“The idea is,” replied Hugh, “that it’s not going to be so hard to get the specimen exhumed, but that it is going to be the very devil to get him out of the cave. I believe that the best way will be to lower the cases down to the river.

Fred nodded. “All right, only you can’t get a boat up Roaring Chief river in the winter.”

“I know,” agreed Hugh. “But I have a feeling that if I don’t get that old brute out now, I won’t get him out at all.”

“What’s the matter? Got bitten by the bad medicine idea?”

Hugh laughed. “Maybe! Anyhow, I’m going to get at the preliminary work this afternoon. I’ll have something to eat, then I’ll go down again and you folks can lower the packing cases and the rest of the materials to me.”

“What’s the matter with me?” demanded Fred. “Don’t I qualify as a bone miner any more?”

“You’ll think you do tomorrow morning when we begin to get that head out,” replied Hugh. “We’ll never get Red Wolf within a mile of it.”

“I ain’t just drooling to get at it myself,” said Fred, “but I aim to keep step with you in nerve if not in brains. All I complain about is that your idea of what’s free gold and mine don’t hitch.” He gave Hugh a grin that was not without admiring affection, and began preparations for dinner.

They made short work of the meal and were at work unloading the freight wagon when a rider came casually into the camp.

“Am I too late for grub?” he cried.

Hugh gave a welcoming shout. “Uncle Bookie!” A tall old man slid from his horse and clasped the young man in a shameless embrace. Even when he had freed Hugh from the bear hug, Bookie stood with his hand on his foster nephew’s shoulder while he grinned at Fred and Red Wolf.

“I hoped it wouldn’t snow till I picked up the smoke of the sheep wagon,” he said. “What happened at the other camp?”

“A slide that ruined two months’ work,” replied Hugh. “Anything wrong at Fort Sioux, Uncle Bookie?”

“There certainly is. A certain fool geologist forgot to come home for Christmas.”

“By Jove!” cried Hugh, “this is Christmas Eve!”

“Wonderful memory you always did have, Hughie,” said Bookie.

Fred joined in Hugh’s laughter, adding, “I’ll heat that kettle of stew. Look to your saddle, stranger.”

Hugh nodded to the Indian. “Look to the saddle, Red Wolf, will you? Come into the wagon, Uncle Bookie. I’ve just made the discovery of my life. Some Christmas gift, I’ll say.”

The older man followed Hugh and rested himself on the edge of the lower bunk with a sigh, probably of pleasure, for he was smiling at Hugh as he did so.

John Haverford Smith, known to all Wyoming as Bookie Smith, was very thin and very brown, with a small, bald head topping a long whip-cord neck. He had deep brown eyes set far apart, eyes that were full of light but that told no tales on Bookie. If, as Hugh often thought, the old man’s life had been one of mental hunger, his eyes did not say so. If life’s lonely, heart-breaking, mirth-provoking pageant had left him sterile, his fine brown eyes did not say so. They were merely the casements from which his lonely and sensitive soul gazed at the world. For the rest, his face was clean shaven and austere of line, his hands were long and startlingly white, the hands of the perpetually gloved rider. He chewed tobacco, always swallowing the juice.

He unbuttoned his mackinaw, showing a black coat buttoned over a blue flannel shirt, renewed his quid, then said:

“How’d you come to make camp just here, Hughie?”

“Well, I was so devilishly disappointed yesterday over the loss of the specimen that old Red Wolf unfolded a story about a stone devil that he thought a white man could drive out of a certain mysterious cave, hereabouts. He declared he could show it to me, and, by jove, the old boy made good. Lord, Uncle Bookie, there’s a triceratops down there that will make the mouths water of several museums I know.”

Bookie chewed thoughtfully, then pulled off his mackinaw and put a spurred foot up on the hearth to dry. “Take off that cap, Hughie, and let me have a square look at you. Who cut your hair?”

“Fred took a hand at it the other day.” Hugh grinned and tossed his cap into the upper bunk. His close cropped head thus displayed was of curiously noble proportions.

“There you are!” said Bookie “Your head should have made something besides a bone digger of you, Hughie! But Lord God, why should an old failure like me croak about that!”

A little glint of irritation showed for a moment in Hugh’s eyes, but it was replaced by a glance of sympathy as he perceived an unwonted expression of weariness, almost of weakness, on Bookie’s thin lips.

“Fred,” Hugh turned suddenly to the old miner, “I don’t believe we’ll begin the job this afternoon, seeing that we have company and it’s Christmas Eve. Suppose you and Red Wolf try your luck at antelope. We ought to have a real dinner tomorrow.”

Fred poured a cupful of melted snow into the coffee pot and smiled.

“Best idea you’ve had in two months, Hughie. Will you dish this here mess for Bookie?”

Hugh nodded and Fred slammed out of the wagon.

“Thanks, Hughie,” said Bookie. “It isn’t very often I get a chance for a real talk with you.”

Hugh served the old man’s meal with the deftness of hand characteristic of him before he asked, “Was there something particular on your mind, Uncle Bookie?”

“I suppose there is,” replied Bookie, “though I didn’t fully realize it till I got here. I’m getting old, Hughie, and you are all I have, and I miss you.”

Hugh, perched on the bunk edge while his uncle ate, nodded understanding. “And you are all I have, too, Uncle Bookie.”

“You oughtn’t to eliminate Jessie that way, Hughie,” said Bookie.

Hugh’s clear gray eyes looked unblinkingly into Bookie’s. “You and I don’t have to make pretenses about Jessie, do we? If I must bluff the rest of the world, I can be honest with you, can’t I?”

“Jessie is all right. She just isn’t your kind, that’s all. I told you before you married her that you’d outgrow her before you were twenty-five,” protested Bookie.

“Well,” Hugh’s low voice was stern, “it’s come as you said and I’m paying the bill in loneliness, but I haven’t complained except when Jess and her mother go after me too hard about my work.”

“Everybody over thirty is lonely,” said Bookie, “and some younger than that Jessie is lonely—or I miss my guess.”

“Is it Jessie that you wanted to talk to me about?” asked Hugh, skeptically

“Only incidentally,” Bookie answered after a long pause, during which he finished his meal and Hugh filled and half smoked a pipe. “Only incidentally. I’m getting old, Hughie I live in the past. It’s a sure sign.”

Hugh packed the dishes into the dish-pan and slung the table against the wall. Then he stretched himself on the bench thus exposed and nodded toward the lower bunk.

“Ease yourself over there, Uncle Bookie, and get it all off your chest.”

Bookie smiled. “I wish it was as simple as that, boy—” He chewed for several minutes. “I’ve had an interesting life, Hugh, a lot more interesting than most folks, chuck full of adventure, and yet, sitting there alone in the old book store night after night, do you know what I think about? The woman I didn’t marry—the son I didn’t have—the good I didn’t do.”

He paused and Hugh eyed him wistfully. “You might be cataloging my own losses, Uncle Bookie!”

“As a matter of fact, Hughie, you are so wrapped up in your work that you don’t look on those things as losses but as assets. Come now, isn’t that true? And you are looking at me sadly out of pure love and sympathy for me. Eh?”

Hugh laughed “Right, Uncle Bookie! Lord, I wouldn’t give up my work for anything on earth.”

“Don’t make wild boasts, boy. Life’s just begun for you— Don’t fix yourself so that every gol darned holiday that comes along, especially Christmas, makes you feel like an empty gourd Especially Christmas.”

“By jove, Uncle Bookie, don’t tell me an old gun-notcher like you is getting sentimental!”

“Exactly! I’m getting sentimental. Every human being has to pay toll sometime in the shape of sentimentality. Most folks are lucky enough to get through it while they’re young But I stalled it off and now I have to pay. Take this matter of Christmas. Christmas isn’t a religious festival. It’s a state of mind. It’s a yearly return to the basic principles on which civilization has covered even the small amount of ground it’s covered so far. Hughie, do you remember the Christmases we used to have on the ranch before your mother died?”

Hugh nodded.

“Do you remember the last one while your father still lived?”

Hugh shook his head “No I was only six. But I was ten when other went.”

“Tell me some of the things you remember, boy.”

Hugh, wondering much as to what was passing in his foster uncle’s mind, complied readily enough, speaking carefully as he turned back into his childhood.

“I remember the tree, of course, and you and mother full of secrets for days beforehand. I recall very clearly the feeling of—of—magic!—in the air I wonder what gave me that? Jove, I can get it now if I let my mind dwell on it!”

He closed his eyes and slipped back into a past which he had not entered for years His tall, gray-eyed mother—the tree—the lights—the gifts—the candle in the window—stars, myriads of stars—and, every Christmas, himself and his mother walking slowly out beyond the corrals to be alone with the star of the east. She had been a deeply religious woman, his tall, gray-eyed mother, and though Hugh had drifted far from her teachings, he never was to forget them. So now he heard her again repeating to the little boy the old, old story—felt again the nearness to a great glory and a great tragedy—sensed his mother’s passionate love for him and his for her—sensed her over whelming desire for him to achieve something as stupendous as that other mother had desired for that other and deeply tragic child—and he perceived again in the boy of seven that strange regret which had grown in him with the years, a regret based on the understanding that life had expended endless glories which he could never know, that those glories were almost within hand touch, if one only could believe enough—if only2