miser's refusal to give her credit for the
food she asked of him. During the early part of that day he had
gone about with a halter in his hand, as if seeking some particular
individual; and whenever he chanced to be questioned as to his object,
he always replied with a wild and ferocious chuckle--

"The fellow that killed her!--the fellow that killed her!"

Upon the present occasion, Mave was surprised by meeting him and the
miser, whom he must have met accidentally, walking side by side, but in
a position which gave fearful intimation of Dalton's purpose respecting
him. Around the unfortunate wretch's neck was the halter aforesaid,
made into a running noose, while, striding beside him, went his wild and
formidable companion, holding the end of it in his hand, and eyeing
him from time to time with a look of stupid but determined ferocity.
Skinadre's appearance and position were ludicrously and painfully
helpless. His face was so pale and thin that it was difficult to see,
even in those frightfuf times of sickness and famine, a countenance from
which they were more significantly reflected. He was absolutely
shrunk up with terror into half his size, his little thin, corded neck
appearing as if it were striving unsuccessfully to work its way down
into his trunk, and his small ferret eyes looking about in every
direction for some one to extricate him out of the deadly thrall in
which he was held. Mave, who had been aware of the enmity which his
companion bore him, as well as of its cause, and fearing that the halter
was intended to hang the luckless mealman, probably upon the next tree
they came to, did not, as many another female would do, avoid or run
away from the madman. On the contrary, she approached him with an
expression singularly winning and sweet on her countenance, and in
a voice of great kindness, laid her hand upon his arm to arrest his
attention, asked him how he did. He paused a moment, and looking upon
her with a dull but turbid eye, exclaimed with an insane laugh, pointing
at the same time, to the miser--"This is the fellow that killed her--ha,
ha, ha, but I have him now--here he is in the noose; in the noose. Ay,
an' I swore it, an' there's another, too, that's to get it, but I won't
rob any body, nor join in that at all; I'll hang him here, though--ha,
Darby, I have you now."

As he spoke, poor Skinadre received a chuck of the halter which almost
brought his tongue out as far as in the throttling proc