ished, he stood before the oak, scraping clinging earth from the
mattock with which he had cut roots he had been compelled to remove.
He was tired now and he thought he would go to his room and sleep until
daybreak. As he turned the implement he remembered how through it he
had found her, and now he was using it in her service. He smiled as he
worked, and half listened to the steady roll of sound encompassing him.
A cool breath swept from the lake and he wondered if it found her wet,
hot cheek. A wild duck in the rushes below gave an alarm signal, and
it ran in subdued voice, note by note, along the shore. The Harvester
gripped the mattock and stood motionless. Wild things had taught him so
many lessons he heeded their warnings instinctively. Perhaps it was a
mink or muskrat approaching the rushes. Listening intently, he heard a
stealthy step coming up the path behind him.

The Harvester waited. He soundlessly moved around the trunk of the big
tree. An instant more the night prowler stopped squarely at the head of
the open grave, and jumped back with an oath. He stood tense a second,
then advanced, scratched a match and dropped it into the depths of the
opening. That instant the Harvester recognized Henry Jameson, and with
a spring landed between the man's shoulders and sent him, face down,
headlong into the grave. He snatched one of the sacks of earth, and
tipping it, gripped the bottom and emptied the contents on the head
and shoulders of the prostrate man. Then he dropped on him and feeling
across his back took an ugly, big revolver from a pocket. He swung to
the surface and waited until Henry Jameson crawled from under the weight
of earth and began to rise; then, at each attempt, he knocked him down.
At last he caught the exhausted man by the collar and dragged him to the
path, where he dropped him and stood gloating.

"So!" he said; "It's you! Coming to execute your threat, are you? What's
the matter with my finishing you, loading your carcass with a few stones
into this sack, and dropping you in the deepest part of the lake."

There was no reply.

"Ain't you a little hasty?" asked the Harvester. "Isn't it rather cold
blooded to come sneaking when you thought I'd be asleep? Don't you think
it would be low down to kill a man on his wedding day?"

Henry Jameson arose cautiously and faced the Harvester.

"Who have you killed?" he panted.

"No one," answered the Harvester. "This is for the victim of a member of