Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/297

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THE SHADOW
287

shovel and began restoring the earth, stolidly tramping it down, from time to time, with his great weight.

When his task was completed he saw that everything was orderly and as he had found it. Then he returned to his tethered pack-mule and once more headed for the Buenavista Camp, carrying with him a discovery which made the night air as intoxicating as wine to his weary body.

Late that night a man might have been heard singing to the stars, singing in the midst of the wilderness, without rhyme or reason. And in the midst of that wilderness he remained for another long day and another long night, as though solitude were necessary to him, that he might adjust himself to some new order of things, that he might digest some victory which had been too much for his shattered nerves.

On the third day, as he limped placidly back into the town of Toluca, his soul was torn between a great peace and a great hunger. He hugged to his breast the fact that somewhere