first
of the target at which he was firing.

There was an open patch to the left. If the buck held to that quarter
he would have to cross that clear. Rock-steady the muzzle came down
and covered the first indistinct brown bulk which entered the notch of
the sights. And then, with an oath, Steve let the gun slip to the
ground at his feet and stood shaking, checks gone white. Garret
Devereau, wearing an old tan canvas coat which he had unearthed in the
cabin peered slyly around a bush which he had been stirring gently with
one hand.

"Go ahead 'n' shoot," he ordered aggrievedly. "Hunter'sh alwaysh shoot
at rush'le in the dark. Good joke on hunter'sh--good joke on my good
frien', Misther O'Mara! Think'sh's got deer until he inves'gates at
leisure. Best joke of all'sh on myself."

The muscles which all day had been a marvel of firmness beneath him
gave way altogether. Without a sound he pitched forward upon his face.
A second later Steve reached his side, but the horror had not faded
from his own eyes after he had picked that prostrate figure up and
carried it into the clay-clinked shack. His memory played him an odd
trick during that moment. A vivid picture came back to him of the
grave-faced boy he had been, struggling to steady Old Tom's helpless
feet up that same rise.

Garry was limp and blue and pulseless when Steve stretched him out,
inside. The second flask stood there where Garry had left it, upon a
table, and while he was loosening the latter's clothing Steve shook it,
experimentally, and found it empty. He swung it aloft and drove it
through a window. The crash of shivered glass made the other stir. He
opened his eyes and stared vacantly up into his friend's face.

"Steve," he moaned. "Steve, I'm cold!"

And that was the burden of the complaints which he lifted, time and
again, throughout the first part of the night. Even after Steve had
wrapped him in everything which the bare room afforded he still
continued to whimper like a sick boy. But his body held strong. Just
as, all day, it had been his brain which had shown the effects of the
alcohol which he had consumed, so now, all night, it was his brain
which suffered most. Again and again he called aloud a woman's name,
in a voice which Stephen O'Mara had never before heard from his lips.
In inconceivable tenderness he whispered it--the name of Mary
Graves--only to cry aloud, "Steve--Steve," in accents of heartbreak the
next.

Long b