into the avid ears of all
who met him. Sol carried the story in the opposite direction, trotting
his horse along full of leisurely importance and the enjoyment of the
distinction which had fallen on him through his early connection with
the strange event. When they heard it, men turned back from their fields
and hastened to the Chase farm, to peer through the kitchen window and
shock their toil-blunted senses in the horror of the scene.

Curiosity is stronger than thrift in most men, and those of that
community were no better fortified against it than others of their kind.
Long before Sol Greening's great lubberly son reached the county-seat, a
crowd had gathered at the farmstead of Isom Chase. Bill Frost, now
bristling with the dignity of his official power, moved among them
soberly, the object of great respect as the living, moving embodiment of
the law.

Yesterday he was only Bill Frost, a tenant of rented land, filling an
office that was only a name; this morning he was Constable Bill Frost,
with the power and dignity of the State of Missouri behind him, guarding
a house of mystery and death. Law and authority had transformed him
overnight, settling upon him as the spirit used to come upon the
prophets in the good old days.

Bill had only to stretch out his arm, and strong men would fall back,
pale and awed, away from the wall of the house; he had but to caution
them in a low word to keep hands off everything, to be instantly obeyed.
They drew away into the yard and stood in low-voiced groups, the process
of thought momentarily stunned by this terrible thing.

"Ain't it awful?" a graybeard would whisper to a stripling youth.

"Ain't it terrible?" would come the reply.

"Well, well, well! Old Isom!"

That was as far as any of them could go. Then they would walk softly,
scarcely breathing, to the window and peep in again.

Joe, unhailed and undisturbed, was spinning out his sleep. Mrs. Greening
brought coffee and refreshments for the young widow from her own kitchen
across the road, and the sun rose and drove the mists out of the
hollows, as a shepherd drives his flocks out to graze upon the hill.

As Sol Greening hitched his horse to the Widow Newbolt's fence, he heard
her singing with long-drawn quavers and lingering semibreves:

_There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins...._

She appeared at the kitchen door, a pan in her hand, a flock of
expectant chickens craning their