Suddenly he realized the mask of deceit behind which the real Bates had been hiding, and his mind intensified by these new developments tore that mask from the man and he saw him as he should have seen him through those school days—a braggart, a self-exalted personality, who used a false character to create a superior being that did not in any way exist; but was like a mirage, which if closely examined would fade into nothingness and disappear.

JOHN devoted two years to constant search. All his savings and all he could borrow went for the expenses of his quest. With soul tortured with apprehension and remorse as his constant companions, he changed not only mentally but physically. He was haggard of face and his hair had turned to a silver whiteness, and his constant brooding had so warped his mind that his quest now was not only to find his wife and save her, but to destroy her despoiler.

Waking or sleeping the thought never left him. His dreams were filled with visions of having Bates at his mercy and of the sweet revenge he enjoyed as he destroyed the reptile. The most fitting revenge he could conceive in his diseased mentality, was to make him suffer in the flesh as he had suffered in the spirit, and these thoughts took form in the idea that sudden death was too good for him, but that lingering torture should be his portion; and he had bought a knife with a vague idea of using it to that end when he had finally run his enemy to earth.

Clues led him from New York to Alaska and back again many times. On the twenty-third month he found his wife a deserted, sick, dying wreck, and with her last breath she asked and he gave his forgiveness. He buried her in Los Angeles, and as the words “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” were spoken, he knew they symbolized the wreck of his life as well as the hopes that were buried with this mortal flesh that had just been laid away.

He was beyond the feeling of remorse and sorrow. Too long had he fostered in his mind the one desire to destroy Bates; so his mission of burial over he traveled again that trail of the quest; and at last on a gold dredge on the upper Yukon he set eyes on the object of his search.

As he came on the boat Bates recognized him, despite his altered appearance, and read in his eyes his purpose, and fear seized him and he sought some avenue of escape; but the swift rushing waters precluded the possibility of reaching shore through