he two men running with the food for which they had been willing to
give their lives dropped flat on the ground unhurt. The pursuing men
running wildly stumbled over them. They were quickly secured and
hustled and kicked to their feet and brought back to the fire.

They must die. And they must die now. They were in the hands of men
whose homes they had burned, whose dear ones they had menaced with the
most terrible of deaths; men who for thirty-six hours now had been
thirsting to kill them. The hour had come.

"Take them down to the gully. Build a fire and dig their graves." Old
Erskine Beasley spoke the sentence.

A short, sharp cry of satisfaction was the answer. A cry that
suggested the snapping of jaws let loose upon the prey.

Then Joseph Winthrop stood in the very midst of the crowd, laying
hands upon the two cowering men, and spoke. A moment before he had
caught his heart saying: This is justice, let it be done. But he had
cried to God against the sin that had whispered at his heart, and he
spoke now calmly, as one assured.

"Do we do wisely, men?" he questioned. "These men are guilty. We know
that, for you saw them almost in the act. The sentence is just, for
they planned what might have been death for you and yours. But shall
only these two be punished? Are there not others? And if we silence
these two now forever, how shall we be ever able to find the others?"

"We'll be sure of these two," said a sullen voice in the crowd.

"True," returned the Bishop, raising his voice. "But I tell you there
are others greater than any of these who have come into the hills
risking their lives. How shall we find and punish those other greater
ones? And I tell you further there is one, for it is always one in the
end. I tell you there is one man walking the world to-night without a
thought of danger or disgrace from whose single mind came all this
trouble upon us. That one man we must find. And I pledge you, my
friends and my neighbours," he went on raising his hand, "I pledge you
that that one man will be found and that he will do right by you.

"Before these men die, bring a justice--there is one of the
village--and let them confess before the world and to him on paper
what they know of this crime and of those who commanded it."

A grudging silence was the only answer, but the Bishop had won for the
time. Old Toussaint Derossier, the village justice, was brought
forward, fumbling with his beloved wallet of papers, a