hind me, and I have done a power of thinking; but I can't make
this thing come out no other way."

He ceased and sat looking down. The girl could fancy his solitary meals
where he cooked what he had killed and ate it, to lie down under the sky
and sleep. Women are denied this fleeing to the desert to be alone with
God and their sorrow. She envied him the privilege. She had no heart to
repeat to him Creed's statements that he was not a spy. That was all
past--wiped out by the parting between her and her lover.

"Yes, Uncle Jep," she uttered low, and with bent head she moved
dejectedly on toward the house.

Here all the boys were sleeping noisily after their vigils of the night
before. About three o'clock, or a little after, they had come home to
find their father turning in at the gate. With their disappointment fresh
upon them they broke through his command of silence, and Wade told him
how they and Blatch had planned the ambush, how Blatch had been called
away, how they had waited in the hollow for Creed, who had promised to
"come and talk to them," how he had never come, but how Arley Kittridge a
few minutes ago had ridden up to notify them that Bonbright was gone from
Nancy Card's, and that the mule was gone with him. None of the watchers
could say what direction he took, except to give earnest assurances that
he had not left by any trail leading down the mountain. "He's bound to be
over here somewhars," Wade concluded, "and Blatch not havin' got back
from Garyville, they two has met somewhars."

The old man listened in silence, and when his son had made an end offered
neither comment nor reply. He passed over without a word the revelation
of the deceit about Blatch's supposed killing. It was as though, weary
and foredone, he dismissed the young fellows to the logic of events--to
life itself--for response, explanation, or punishment.

Judith changed her dress, bathed her pale face, and set about preparing
breakfast. And that was a strange meal when she had finally put it on the
table and bidden them to it. The sons sat in their places like chidden
schoolboys, furtively studying their father's ravaged visage, looking at
each other and muttering requests or replies. They were all aware of the
ugliness of their several offences. Creed's strange disappearance,
Blatch's failure to return, the utter collapse of their errand, these had
shaken them terribly.

About a third of the way through the meal Jim Cal shuffled in