ther Makimmon would
ever listen to the persistent birds, the eternal whisper of the water,
because he, the last, had killed his wife ... he had killed their child.

He trod down the creaking steps to the soft, fragrant sod, and made his
way to where a thread of light outlined the stable door. Sim was seated on
a box, the lantern at his feet casting a pale flicker over his riven face
and the horse muzzling the trough. Gordon sat down upon the broken chair.

"She's dead," he said, after a minute. Simeon Caley made no immediate
reply, and he repeated in exactly the same manner:

"She's dead."

A sudden bitterness of contempt flamed in the other's ineffable blue eyes.
"God damn you to hell!" he exclaimed; "now you got the money and nothing
to hinder you."

His resentment vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He rose and picked
up the lantern, and with their puny illumination they went out together
into the dark.

THREE

I

On an afternoon of the second autumn following Lettice's death Gordon was
fetching home a headstall resewn by Peterman. The latter, in a small shed
filled with the penetrating odor of dressed leather at the back of the
hotel, exercised the additional trade of saddler. General Jackson ambled
at Gordon's heel.

The dog had grown until his shoulder reached the man's knee; he was
compact and powerful, with a long, heavy jaw and pronounced, grave
whiskers; the wheaten color of his legs and head had lightened, sharply
defining the coarse black hair upon his back.

October was drawing to a close: the autumn had been dry, and the foliage
was not brilliantly colored, but exhibited a single shade of dusty brown
that, in the sun, took the somber gleams of clouded gold. It was warm
still, but a furtive wind, stirring the dead leaves uneasily over the
ground, was momentarily ominous, chill.

The limp rim of a felt hat obscured Gordon's features, out of the shadow
of which protruded his lean, sharp chin. His heavy shoes, hastily scraped
of mud, bore long cuts across the heels, while shapeless trousers, a coat
with gaping pockets, hung loosely about his thin body and bowed shoulders.
He passed the idlers before the office of the _Bugle_ with a scarcely
perceptible nod; but, farther on, he stopped before a solitary figure
advancing over the narrow footway.

It was Buckley Simmons. He was noticeably smaller since his injury at the
camp meeting; he had shrivelled; his face was peaked and wrinkled l