t
beside him until the fast glazing eyes--which never wavered from
his--closed forever, and the pain-tortured little body lay still. Big
Jerry, too, sank down and dropped his massive head onto his hands,
while his frame rose and fell with convulsive heaving.

"Hit war this erway," he began to speak at last, and told his story in
broken, laboring sentences. "I war erhuntin' with ... with yo'r
rifle-gun in the woods thar beyond ther ravine. Jest es I war startin'
fer the cabin, I seen ... I seen a man erstandin' hyar on the bank, er
peerin' down towards the river, thar. I looked whar he war erlookin',
an' seen ye down thar, bathin' yo'r face in ther water. The man war
ertotin' a rifle-gun, an' uv a sudden he drapped ter his knee an' raised
hit, an' I knowed he war kalkerlatin' ter shoot ye.

"I tried fer ter shout, ter cry out a warnin' ter ye, but my voice hed
somehow lost hits power, an' wouldn't kerry above the noise of the
falls. Thar war but one thing fer ter do, an' hit called fer powerful
quick action.

"Yo' war my foster-son, an' ef 'twar yo'r life er his'n I allowed I
knowed whar my duty lay. But I didn't aim fer ter kill him.... I wish
ter Gawd I hed. 'Taint boastin' none fer me ter say ter ye thet I aimed
only fer ter shoot the arm what war holdin' the gun.

"In course hit takes time fer ter tell ye all this, but I acted like I
thought. Then ..." he paused, and went on only with a supreme effort,
"then, jest as I started the trigger-pull, I seen ... I seen leetle Mike
spring out o' the bushes straight at ... at the man. I _seen_ him, I
tells ye, erfore I fired. My mind told me not ter pull thet trigger,
an' ... an' I done hit. My aim war true, but ..." he stopped altogether.

"The man," asked Donald at length, through clenched teeth. "What
happened to him?"

"He turned et the crack of my gun. He ... he seen me, and run off inter
the wood thar."

There ensued a long silence. Then Donald's hand stretched out and
grasped that of the sorrowing giant.

"Jerry," he said steadily. "Don't feel so bad, it wasn't your fault. You
did all that man could do. You were trying to ... to save my life, just
as ... as Mike was, God bless the little dog. He must have realized that
Judd was following me by the exercise of a sense beyond our knowledge,
and rushed back to attack him--for my sake."

"Yo' said ... yo' said ... 'Judd.' How did yo' come ter know 'twar him?"

With new and deepened remorse, Donald sadly outline