f-hour."

As their eyes encountered, Hardwick caught his breath sharply; both felt
that chill of the cuticle, that stirring at the roots of the hair, that
marks the passing close to us of some sinister thing--stark murder, or
man's naked hatred walking in the dark beside our cheerful, commonplace
path. By one consent they turned back from the stable and went together
to Mrs. Gandish's. The house was dark.

"Of course, you know I don't expect to find him here," said Hardwick. "I
don't suppose they know anything about the matter. But we've got to wake
them and ask."

They did so, and set trembling the first wave of that widening ring of
horror which finally informed the remotest boundaries of the little
village that a man from their midst was mysteriously missing.

The morning found the telegraph in active requisition, flashing up and
down all lines by which a man might have left Cottonville or Watauga.
The police of the latter place were notified, furnished with
information, and set to find out if possible whether anybody in the city
had seen Stoddard since he rode away on Friday morning.

The inquiries were fruitless. A young lady visiting in the city had
promised him a dance at the Valentine masque to be held at the Country
Club-house Friday night. Some clothing put out a few days before to be
cleaned and pressed was ready for delivery. His laundry came home. His
mail arrived punctually. The postmaster stated that he had no
instructions for a change of address; all the little accessories of Gray
Stoddard's life offered themselves, mute, impressive witnesses that he
had intended to go on with it in Cottonville. But Stoddard himself had
dropped as completely out of the knowledge of man as though he had been
whisked off the planet.

CHAPTER XXI

THE SEARCH

The fruitless search was vigorously prosecuted. On Saturday the Hardwick
mill ran short-handed while nearly half its male employees made some
effort to solve the mystery. Parties combed again and again the nearer
mountains. Sunday all the mill operatives were free; and then groups of
women and children added themselves to the men; dinners were taken
along, lending a grotesque suggestion of picnicking to the work, a
suggestion contradicted by the anxious faces, the strained timbre of the
voices that called from group to group. But night brought the amateur
searchers straggling home with nothing to tell. It should have been
significant to any one who knew t