e paler; but he did not move,
and Buckmaster's hand tightened convulsively.

"You liked him, an' he liked you; he first learnt poker off you, Sinnet.
He thought you was a tough, but he didn't mind that no more than I did. It
ain't for us to say what we're goin' to be, not always. Things in life git
stronger than we are. You was a tough, but who's goin' to judge you? I
ain't; for Clint took to you, Sinnet, an' he never went wrong in his
thinkin'. God! he was wife an' child to me--an' he's dead--dead--dead!"

The man's grief was a painful thing to see. His hands gripped the table,
while his body shook with sobs, though his eyes gave forth no tears. It
was an inward convulsion, which gave his face the look of unrelieved
tragedy and suffering--Laocoon struggling with the serpents of sorrow and
hatred which were strangling him.

"Dead an' gone," he repeated, as he swayed to and fro, and the table
quivered in his grasp. Presently, however, as though arrested by a
thought, he peered out of the doorway toward Juniper Bend. "That hawk seen
him--it seen him. He's comin', I know it, an' I'll git him--plumb." He had
the mystery and imagination of the mountain-dweller.

The rifle lay against the wall behind him, and he turned and touched it
almost caressingly. "I ain't let go like this since he was killed, Sinnet.
It don't do. I got to keep myself stiddy to do the trick when the minute
comes. At first I usen't to sleep at nights, thinkin' of Clint, an'
missin' him, an' I got shaky and no good. So I put a cinch on myself, an'
got to sleepin' again--from the full dusk to dawn, for Greevy wouldn't
take the trail at night. I've kept stiddy." He held out his hand as though
to show that it was firm and steady, but it trembled with the emotion
which had conquered him. He saw it, and shook his head angrily.

"It was seein' you, Sinnet. It burst me. I ain't seen no one to speak to
in a month, an' with you sittin' there, it was like Clint an' me cuttin'
and comin' again off the loaf an' the knuckle-bone of ven'son."

Sinnet ran a long finger slowly across his lips, and seemed meditating
what he should say to the mountaineer. At length he spoke, looking into
Buckmaster's face: "What was the story Ricketts told you? What did your
boy tell Ricketts? I've heard, too, about it, and that's why I asked you
if you had proofs that Greevy killed Clint. Of course, Clint should know,
and if he told Ricketts, that's pretty straight; but I'd like to kn