Jackson Gregory

“ With beautiful wings all of gold. Father knew it was like that. Has his soul gone away with it? Up and up and beyond the clouds and through the sky and to the other world?”
And John Sheldon answered simply, saying:
“Yes, my dear.”
Paula was very still again, her eyes thoughtful.
“What will we do with—him?” she asked after a long silence, the first hint of tears in her eyes.
Then he told her, explaining as he would to Bill and Bet, as one talks with a credulous child, hiding those things upon which man is so prone to look as horrible, showing as best he knew that there is beauty in death. ”

“ The fretful pulse was still, the tired heart was at rest, the fever-ridden brain slept.
“Yes,” he said quietly as, kneeling, he removed his hat and looked up pityingly into Paula’s set face. “He is dead. Poor little Paula!”
She stared at him with her eyes widening in eloquent expression of the new emotions in her breast. She stood very still, her hands clasped as they had been when the old man rose to his feet. Her brown fingers were slowly going white from their Own steady pressure. Sheldon could only wonder gropingly what this tragedy would mean to her. ”

“ The world was filled with a strange light from the lowering sun shining through the wet air, a light which shone warmly like gold, which seemed to throb and quiver and thrill as it lay over the forest. ”

“ In the open now, he carried his rifle in two hands, ready.
But here at least was no trap set for him. Paula, running on ahead of him, now suddenly had dropped to her knees, and for the first time Sheldon saw the prone body of the madman. The girl had taken his head into her lap and was bending over him; the gaunt, hollow, burning eyes blazed full at Sheldon. And they were filled with malice, with lurking cunning, with suspicion, and unutterable hatred. But the man made no effort to rise. Sheldon came on until he stood over him. ”

“ I swear I don’t! I’m just a mining engineer out of a job and down on the rocks.”
“Then,” querulously, “you didn’t come looking for—”
“For the Parnassius Aureus Giganticus?” smiled Sheldon. “No. And though you may not believe it, I don’t come looking for gold either!”
His words had a strange, unlooked-for effect. He had hoped that they might a little dispel suspicion. Instead, the madman jerked away from Paula’s hands, sought to spring to his feet, and achieved a position half-kneeling, half-squatting, his whole body shaken, a wild fury in his eyes. ”

“ She turned then and sped back the way she had come, Sheldon running at her heels, she turning her head now and then, accommodating her pace to his. This way and that they wove their way through the forest. ”

“ She was in the grip of some emotion so strong that she was no longer afraid of him, so that she laid her hand for the fraction of a second upon his arm as she cried brokenly:
“Come! Come quickly!”
“What is it?” he demanded, wondering. “What do you want? ”