Besides--guess you know it yourself--you can't touch me here. Why not
talk things over frankly? Say, Bub, shall it be on me?"

"I'm willing."

A waiter sidled up and took the order that Greenfield gave without
hesitation.

"You see, even the dinner was ready for you," he said with a wink; "see
how you like it." With a gesture of impatience he pushed aside the menu,
squared his arms on the table, and looked suddenly at his pursuer with
the deviltry of a schoolboy glistening in his eyes. "Well, Bub, I went
into your all-fired Canady!"

"So you did--why?"

"Well," said Greenfield, drawing lines with his knife-point on the nap,
"one reason was I wanted to see if Her Majesty's shop has such an
all-fired long arm--"

"And the other reason was I warned you to keep over the line."

"Why, Bub, you _are_ a bright boy!"

"It ain't me, Bucky," Frawley answered, with a shake of his head; "it's
the all-fired government that's after you."

"Good--first rate--then we'll have a little excitement!"

"You'll have plenty of that, Bucky!"

"Maybe, Bub, maybe. Well, I made a neat job of it, didn't I?"

"You did," admitted Frawley with an appreciative nod. "But you were
wrong--you were wrong--you should have kept off. The Canadian Government
ain't like your bloomin' democracy. It don't forgive--it don't forget.
Tack that up, Bucky. It's a principle we've got at stake with you!"

"Don't I know it?" cried Greenfield, striking the table. "What else do
you think I did it for?"

Frawley gazed at him, then said slowly: "I told them it was a personal
matter."

"Sure it was! Do you think I could keep out after you served notice on
me? D---- your English pride and your English justice! I'm a good enough
Yank to see if your dinky police is such an all-fired cute little bunch
of wonder-workers as you say! Bub--you think you're going to get Mr.
Greenfield--don't you?"

"I'm not thinking, Bucky--"

"Eh?"

"I'm simply sticking to you."

"Sticking to me!" cried Greenfield with a roar of disgust. "Why, you
unimaginative, lumbering, beef-eating Canuck, you can't get me that way!
Why in tarnation didn't you strike plump for here--instead of rubbin'
yourself down the whole coast of South Ameriky?"

"Bucky, you don't understand the situation properly," objected Frawley,
without varying the level tone of his voice. "Supposing it had been a
bloomin' corporation had sent me--? that's what I'd have done. But it's
the government this time--Her Majesty's government! Time ain't no
consideration. I'd have raked down the whole continent if I'd had
to--though I knew where you were."

"Well, and now what? You can't touch me, Bub," he added earnestly. "I
like straight talk, man to man. Now, what's your game?"

"Business."

"All right then," said Greenfield, with a frown, "but you can't touch
me--now. There's an extradition treaty coming, but then there'd have to
be a retroactive clause to do you any good." He paused, studying the
expression on the Inspector's face. "There's enough of the likes of me
here to see that don't occur. Say, Bub?"

"Well?"

"You deal a square pack, don't you?"

"That's my reputation, Bucky."

"Give me your word you'll play me square."

Inspector Frawley, leaning forward, helped himself busily. Greenfield,
with pursed lips, studied every movement.

"No kidnapping tricks?"

Without lifting his eyes Frawley sharpened his knife vigorously against
his fork and fell to eating.

"Well, Bub?"

"What?"

"No fancy kidnapping?"

"I'm promising nothing, Bucky."

There was a blank moment while Greenfield considered. Suddenly he shot
out his hand, saying with a nod: "You're a white man, Bub, and I never
heard a word against that." He filled a glass and shoved it toward
Frawley. "We might as well clink on it. For I rather opinionate before
we get through this little business--there'll be something worth talking
about."

"Here's to you then, Bucky," said Frawley, nodding.

"Remember what I tell you," said Greenfield, looking over his glass,
"there's going to be something to live for."

"I say, Bucky," said Frawley with a lazy interest, "would they serve you
five-o'clock tea here, I wonder?"

Greenfield, drawing back, laughed a superior laugh.

"Bub, I'm sorry for you--'pon my word I am."

"How so, Bucky?"

"Why, you plodding little English lamb, you don't have the slightest
suspicion what you're gettin' into!"

"What am I getting into, Bucky?"

Greenfield threw back his head with a chuckle.

"If you get me, it'll be the last job you ever pull off."

"Maybe, maybe."

"Since things are aboveboard--listen here," said Greenfield with sudden
seriousness. "Bub, you'll not get me alive. Nothing personal, you
understand, but it'll have to be your life or mine. If it comes to the
pinch, look out for yourself--"

"Oh, yes," said Frawley, with a matter-of-fact nod, "I understand."

"I ain't tried to bribe you," said Greenfield, rising. "Thank me for
that--though another man might have been sent up for life."

"Thanks," Frawley said with a drawl. "And you'll notice I haven't
advised you to come back and face the music. Seems to me we understand
each other."

"Here's my address," said Greenfield, handing him a card; "may save you
some trouble. I'm here every night." He held out his hand. "Turn up and
meet the profesh. They're a clever lot here. They'd appreciate meeting
you, too."

"Perhaps I will."

"Ta-ta, then."

Greenfield took a few steps, halted, and lounged back with a smile full
of mischief.

"By the way, Bub--how long has Her Majesty's dinkies given you?"

"It's a life appointment, Bucky."

"Really--bless me--then your bloomin' government has some sense after
all."

The two men saluted gravely, with a parting exchange.

"Now, Bub--keep fit."

"Same to you, Bucky."




IV


The view of Greenfield sauntering lightly away among the noisy tables,
bravado in his manner, deviltry in his heart, was the last glimpse
Inspector Frawley was destined to have of him in many months. True,
Greenfield had not lied: the address was genuine, but the man was gone.
For days Frawley had the city scoured without gaining a clue. No steamer
had left the harbor, not even a tramp. If Greenfield was not in hiding,
he must have buried himself in the interior.

It was a week before Frawley found the track. Greenfield had walked
thirty miles into the country and taken the train for Rio Mendoza on the
route across the Andes to Valparaiso.

Frawley followed the same day, somewhat mystified at this sudden change
of base. In the train the thermometer stood at 116°. The heat made of
everything a solitude. Frawley, lifeless, stifling, and numbed, glued
himself to the air-holes with eyes fastened on the horizon, while the
train sped across the naked, singeing back of the plains like the welt
that springs to meet the fall of the lash. For two nights he watched the
distended sun, exhausted by its own madness, drop back into the heated
void, and the tortured stars rise over the stricken desert. At the end
of thirty-six hours of agony he arrived at Rio Mendoza. Thence he
reached Punta de Vacas, procured mules and a guide, and prepared for
the ascent over the mountains.

At two o'clock the next morning he began to climb out of hell. The
tortured plains settled below him. A divine freshness breathed upon him
with a new hope of life. He left the burning conflict of summer and
passed into the aroma of spring.

Then the air grew intense, a new suffocation pressed about his
temples--the suffocation of too much life. In an hour he had run the
gamut of the seasons. The cold of everlasting winter descended and stung
his senses. Up and up and up they went--then suddenly down, with the
half-breed guide and the tireless mule always at the same distance
before him; and again began the insistent mechanical toiling upward. He
grew listless and indifferent, acquiescent in these steep efforts that
the next moment must throw away. The horror of immense distance rose
about him. From time to time a stone dislodged by their passage rushed
from under him, struck the brink, and spun into the void, to fall
endlessly. The face of the earth grew confused and dropped in a mist
from before his eyes.

Then as they toiled still upward, a gale as though sent in anger rushed
down upon them, sweeping up whirlwinds of snow, raging and shrieking,
dragging them to the brink, and threatening to blot them out.

Frawley clutched the saddle, then flung his arms about the neck of his
mule. His head was reeling, the indignant blood rushed to his nostrils
and his ears, his lungs no longer could master the divine air. Then
suddenly the mules stopped, exhausted. Through the maelstrom the guide
shrieked to him not to use the spur. Frawley felt himself in danger of
dying, and had no resentment.

For a day they affronted the immense wilds until they had forced
themselves thousands of feet above the race of men. Then they began to
descend.

Below them the clouds lapped and rolled like the elements before the
creation. Still they descended, and the moist oblivion closed about
them, like the curse of a world without color. The bleak mists separated
and began to roll up above them, a cloud split asunder, and through the
slit the earth jumped up, and the solid land spread before them as when
at the dawn it obeyed the will of the Creator. They saw the hills and
the mountains grow, and the rivers trickle toward the sea. The masses of
brown and green began to be splashed with red and yellow as the fields
became fertile and fructified; and the insect race of men began to crawl
to and fro.

The half-breed, who saw the scene for the hundredth time, bent his head
in awe. Frawley straightened in his saddle, stretched the stiffness out
of his limbs, patted his mule solicitously, glanced at the guide, and
stopped in perplexity at the mute, reverential attitude.

"What's he starin' at now?" he muttered in as then, with a glance at
his watch, he added anxiously, "I say, Sammy, when do we get a bit to
eat?"




V


In Valparaiso he readily found the track of Greenfield. Up to the time
of his departure, two boats had sailed: one for the north, and one by
the Straits of Magellan to Buenos Ayres. Greenfield had bought a ticket
for each, after effecting the withdrawal of his account at a local bank.
Frawley was in perplexity: for Greenfield to flee north was to run into
the jaws of the law. The withdrawal of the account decided him. He
returned to Buenos Ayres by the route he had come, arriving the day
before the steamer. To his discomfiture Greenfield was not on board. By
ridiculously casting away his protection he had thrown the detective off
the track and gained three weeks. Without more concern than he might
have shown in taking a trip from Toronto to New York, Frawley a third
time crossed the Andes and set himself to correcting his first error.

He traced Greenfield laboriously up the coast back to Panama and there
lost the trail. At the end of two months he learned that Greenfield had
shipped as a common sailor on a freighter that touched at Hawaii. From
here he followed him to Yokohama, Singapore, Ceylon, and Bombay.

Thence Greenfield, suddenly abandoning the water route, had proceeded
by land to Bagdad, and across the Turkish Empire to Constantinople.
Without a pause, Frawley traced him next into the Balkans, through
Bulgaria, Roumania, amid massacre and revolution to Budapest, back to
Odessa, and across the back of Russia by Moscow and Riga to Stockholm. A
year had elapsed.

Several times he might have gained on the fugitive had he trusted to his
instinct; but he bided his time, renouncing a stroke of genius, in order
to be certain of committing no error, awaiting the moment when
Greenfield would pause and he might overtake him. But the fugitive, as
though stung by a gad-fly, continued to plunge madly over sea and
continent. Four months, five months behind, Frawley continued the
tireless pursuit.

From Stockholm the chase led to Copenhagen, to Christiansand, down the
North Sea to Rotterdam. From thence Greenfield had rushed by rail to
Lisbon and taken steamer to Africa, touching at Gibraltar, Portuguese
and French Guinea, Sierra Leone, and proceeding thence into the Congo.
For a month all traces disappeared in the veldt, until by chance, rather
than by his own merits, Frawley found the trail anew in Madagascar,
whither Greenfield had come after a desperate attempt to bury his trail
on the immense plains of Southern Africa.

From Madagascar, Frawley followed him to Aden in Arabia and by steamer
to Melbourne. Again for weeks he sought the confused track vainly
through Australia, up through Sydney, down again to Tasmania and New
Zealand on a false clue, back to Queensland, where at last in Cooktown
he learned anew of the passing of his man.

The third year began without appreciable gain. Greenfield still was
three months in advance, never pausing, scurrying from continent to
continent, as though instinctively aware of the progress of his pursuer.

In this year Frawley visited Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, stopped at
Manila, jumped immediately to Korea, and hurried on to Vladivostok,
where he found that Greenfield had procured passage on a sealer bound
for Auckland. There he had taken the steamer by the Straits of Magellan
back to Buenos Ayres.

There, within the first hour, he heard a report that his man had gone on
to Rio Janeiro, caught the cholera, and died there. Undaunted by the
epidemic, Frawley took the next boat and entered the stricken city by
swimming ashore. For a week he searched the hospitals and the
cemeteries. Greenfield had indeed been stricken, but, escaping with his
life, had left for the northern part of Brazil. The delay resulted in a
gain of three months for Frawley, but without heat or excitement he
began anew the pursuit, passing up the coast to Para and the mouth of
the Amazon, by Bogota and Panama into Mexico, on up toward the border
of Texas. The months between him and Greenfield shortened to weeks, then
to days without troubling his equanimity. At El Paso he arrived a few
hours after Greenfield had left, going toward the Salt Basin and the
Guadalupe Mountains. Frawley took horses and a guide and followed to the
edge of the desert. At three o'clock in the afternoon a horseman grew
out of the horizon, a figure that remained stationary and attentive,
studying his approach through a spy-glass. Suddenly, as though
satisfied, the stranger took off his hat and waved it above his head in
challenge, and digging his heels into his horse, disappeared into the
desert.




VI


Frawley understood the challenge--the end was to be in the desert.
Failing to move his guide by threat or promise, he left him clamoring
frantically on the edge of the desert and rode on toward where the
figure of Greenfield had disappeared on the horizon in a puff of dust.

For three days they went their way grimly into the parched sands,
husbanding every particle of strength, within plain sight of each other,
always at the same unvarying walk. At night they slept by fits and
starts, with an ear trained for the slightest hostile sound. Then they
cast aside their saddles, their rifles, and superfluous clothing, in a
vain effort to save their mounts.

The horses, heaving and staggering, crawled over the yielding sands
like silhouettes drawn by a thread. In the sky not a cloud appeared;
below, the yellow monotony extended as flat as a dish. Above them a lazy
buzzard, wheeling in languid circles, followed with patient conviction.

On the fourth morning Frawley's horse stopped, shuddered, and went down
in a heap. Greenfield halted and surveyed his discomfiture grimly,
without a sign of elation.

"That's bad, very bad," Frawley said judicially. "I ought to have sent
word to the department. Still, it's not over yet--his horse won't last
long. Well, I mustn't carry much."

He abandoned his revolver, a knife, $200 in gold, and continued on foot,
preserving only the water-bag with its precious mouthful. Greenfield,
who had waited immovably, allowed him to approach within a quarter of a
mile before putting his horse in motion.

"He's going to make sure I stay here," said Frawley to himself, seeing
that Greenfield made no attempt to increase the lead. "Well, we'll see."

Twelve hours later Greenfield's horse gave out. Frawley uttered a cry of
joy, but the handicap of half a day was a serious one; he was exhausted,
famished, and in the bag there remained only sufficient water to moisten
his lips.

The fifth day broke with an angry sun and no sign on the horizon to
relieve the eternal monotony. Only the buzzard at the same distance
aloft bided his time. Hunter and hunted, united perforce by their common
suffering, plodded on with the weary, hopeless straining of human beings
harnessed to a plow, covering scarcely a mile an hour. From time to
time, by common consent, they sat down, gaunt, exhausted figures, eyeing
each other with the instinct of beasts, their elbows on their bony
knees. Whether from a fear of losing energy, whether under the spell of
the frightful stillness, neither had uttered a word.

Frawley was afire with thirst. The desert entered his body with its dry
mortal heat, and ran its consuming dryness through his veins; his eyes
started from his face as the sun above him hung out of the parched sky.
He began to talk to himself, to sing. Under his feet the sand sifted
like the soft protest of autumn leaves. He imagined himself back in the
forest, marking the rustle of leafy branches and the intermittent
dropping of acorns and twigs. All at once his legs refused to move. He
stood still, his gaze concentrated on the figure of Greenfield a long
moment, then his body crumpled under him and he sank without volition to
the ground.

Greenfield stopped, sat down, and waited. After half an hour he drew
himself to his feet, moved on, then stopped, returned, approached, and
listened to the crooning of the delirious man. Suddenly satisfied, he
flung both arms into the air in frenzied triumph, turned, staggered,
and reeled away, while back over the desert came the grotesque, hideous
refrain, in maddened victory:

"Yankee Doodle Dandy oh!
Yankee Doodle Dandy!"

Frawley watched him go, then with a sigh of relief turned his glance to
the black revolving form in the air--at least that remained to break the
horror of the solitude. Then he lost consciousness.

The beat of wings across his face aroused him with a start and a cry of
agony. The great bird of carrion, startled in its inspection, flew
clumsily off and settled fearlessly on the ground, blinking at him.

An immense revolt, a furious anger brought with it new strength. He rose
and rushed at the bird with clenched fist, cursing it as it lumbered
awkwardly away. Then he began desperately to struggle on, following the
tracks in the sand.

At the end of an hour specks appeared on the horizon. He looked at them
in his delirium and began to laugh uneasily.

"I must be out of my head," he said to himself seriously. "It's a
mirage. Well, I suppose it is the end. Who'll they put on the case now?
Keech, I suppose; yes, Keech; he's a good man. Of course it's a mirage."

As he continued to stumble forward, the dots assumed the shape of trees
and hills. He laughed contemptuously and began to remonstrate with
himself, repeating:

"It's a mirage, or I'm out of my head." He began to be worried, saying
over and over: "That's a bad sign, very bad. I mustn't lose control of
myself. I must stick to him--stick to him until he dies of old age.
Bucky Greenfield! Well, he won't get out of this either. If the
department could only know!"

The nearer he drew to life, the more indignant he became. He arrived
thus at the edge of trees and green things.

"Why don't they go?" he said angrily. "They ought to, now. Come, I think
I'm keeping my head remarkably well."

All at once a magnificent idea came to him--he would walk through the
mirage and end it. He advanced furiously against an imaginary tree,
struck his forehead, and toppled over insensible.




VII


Frawley returned to consciousness to find himself in the hut of a
half-breed Indian, who was forcing a soup of herbs between his lips.

Two days later he regained his strength sufficiently to reach a ranch
owned by Englishmen. Fitted out by them, he started at once to return to
El Paso; to take up the unending search anew.

In the late afternoon, tired and thirsty, he arrived at a shanty where
a handful of Mexican children were lolling in the cool of the wall. At
the sound of his approach a woman came running to the door, shrieking
for assistance in a Mexican gibberish. He ran hastily to the house, his
hand on his pistol. The woman, without stopping her chatter, huddled in
the doorway, pointing to the dim corner opposite. Frawley, following her
glance, saw the figure of a man stretched on a hasty bed of leaves. He
took a few quick steps and recognized Greenfield.

At the same moment the bundle shot to a sitting position, with a cry:

"Who's that?"

Frawley, with a quick motion, covered him with his revolver, crying:

"Hands up. It's me, Bucky, and I've got you now!"

"Frawley!"

"That's it, Bucky--Hands up!"

Greenfield, without obeying, stared at him wildly.

"God, it is Frawley!" he cried, and fell back in a heap.

Inspector Frawley, advancing a step, repeated his command with no
uncertain ring:

"Hands up! Quick!"

On the bed the distorted body contracted suddenly into a ball.

"Easy, Bub," Greenfield said between his teeth. "Easy; don't get
excited. I'm dying."

"You?"

Frawley approached cautiously, suspiciously.

"Fact. I'm cashin' in."

"What's the matter?"

"Bug. Plain bug--the desert did the rest."

"A what?"

"Tarantula bite--don't laugh, Bub."

Frawley, at his side, needed but a glance to see that it was true. He
ran his hand over Greenfield's belt and removed his pistol.

"Sorry," he said curtly, standing up.

"Quite keerect, Bub!"

"Can I do anything for you?"

"Nope."

Suddenly, without warning, Greenfield raised himself, glared at him,
stretched out his hands, and fell into a passionate fit of weeping.
Frawley's English reserve was outraged.

"What's the matter?" he said angrily. "You're not going to show the
white feather now, are you?"

With an oath Greenfield sat bolt upright, silent and flustered.

"D---- you, Bub--show some imagination," he said after a pause. "Do
you think I mind dying--me? That's a good one. It ain't that--no--it's
ending, ending like this. After all I've been through, to be put out of
business by a bug--an ornery little bug."

Then Frawley comprehended his mistake.

"I say, Bucky, I'll take that back," he said awkwardly.

"No imagination, no imagination," Greenfield muttered, sinking back.
"Why, man, if I'd chased you three times around the world and got you,
I'd fall on you and beat you to a pulp or--or I'd hug you like a
long-lost brother."

"I asked your pardon," said Frawley again.

"All right, Bub--all right," Greenfield answered with a short laugh.
Then after a pause he added seriously: "So you've come--well, I'm glad
it's over. Bub," he continued, raising himself excitedly on his elbow,
"here's something strange, only you won't understand it. Do you know,
the whole time I knew just where you were--I had a feeling somewhere in
the back of my neck. At first you were 'way off, over the horizon; then
you got to be a spot coming over the hill. Then I began to feel that
spot growin' bigger and bigger--after Rio Janeiro, crawling up, creeping
up. Gospel truth, I felt you sneaking up on my back. It got on my
nerves. I dreamed about it, and that morning on the trail when you was
just a speck on any old hoss--I knew! You--you don't understand such
things, Bub, do you?"

Frawley made an effort, failed, and answered helplessly:

"No, Bucky, no, I can't say I do understand."

"Why do you think I ran you into Rio Janeiro?" said Greenfield,
twisting on the leaves. "Into the cholery? What do you think made me lay
for this desert? Bub, you were on my back, clinging like a catamount. I
was bound to shake you off. I was desperate. It had to end one way or
t'other. That's why I stuck to you until I thought it was over with
you."

"Why didn't you make sure of it?" said Frawley with curiosity; "you
could have done for me there."

Greenfield looked at him hard and nodded.

"Keerect, Bub; quite so!"

"Why didn't you?"

"Why!" cried Greenfield angrily. "Ain't you ever had any imagination?
Did I want to shoot you down like a common ordinary pickpocket after
taking you three times around the world? That was no ending! God, what a
chase it was!"

"It was long, Bucky," Frawley admitted. "It was a good one!"

"Can't you understand anything?" Greenfield cried querulously. "Where's
anything bigger, more than what we've done? And to have it end like
this--to have a bug--a miserable, squashy bug beat you after all!"

For a long moment there was no sound, while Greenfield lay, twisting,
his head averted, buried in the leaves.

"It's not right, Bucky," said Frawley at last,
with an effort at sympathy. "It oughtn't to have ended this way."

"It was worth it!" Greenfield cried. "Three years! There ain't much dirt
we haven't kicked up! Asia, Africa--a regular Cook's tour through
Europe, North and South Ameriky. And what seas, Bub!" His voice
faltered. The drops of sweat stood thickly on his forehead; but he
pulled himself together gamely. "Do you remember the Sea of Japan with
its funny little toy junks? Man, we've beaten out Columbus, Jools Verne,
and the rest of them--hollow, Bub!"

"I say, what did you do it for?"

"You are a rum un," said Greenfield with a broken laugh. The words began
to come shorter and with effort. "Excitement, Bub! Deviltry and
cussedness!"

"How do you feel, Bucky?" asked Frawley.

"Half in hell already--stewing for my sins--but it's not that--it's--"

"What, Bucky?"