s. Then he
called Halvard.

"I'll get you to witness these signatures," he said, rising. Poul
Halvard hesitated; then, with a furrowed brow, clumsily grasped the
pen. "Here," Woolfolk indicated. The man wrote slowly, linking
fortuitously the unsteady letters of his name. This arduous task
accomplished, he immediately rose. John Woolfolk again took his place,
turning to address the other, when he saw that one side of Halvard's
face was bluish and rapidly swelling.

"What's the matter with your jaw?" he promptly inquired.

Halvard avoided his gaze, obviously reluctant to speak, but Woolfolk's
silent interrogation was insistent. Then:

"I met that Nicholas," Halvard admitted; "without a knife."

"Well?" Woolfolk insisted.

"There's something wrong with this cursed place," Halvard said
defiantly. "You can laugh, but there's a matter in the air that's not
natural. My grandmother could have named it. She heard the ravens that
called Tollfsen's death, and read Linga's eyes before she strangulated
herself. Anyhow, when you didn't come back I got doubtful and took the
tender in. Then I saw Nicholas beating up through the bushes, hiding
here and there, and doubling through the grass; so I came on him from
the back and--and kicked him, quite sudden.

"He went on his hands, but got up quick for a hulk like himself. Sir,
this is hard to believe, but it's Biblical--he didn't take any more
notice of the kick than if it had been a flag halyard brushed against
him. He said 'Go away,' and waved his foolish hands.

"I closed in, still careful of the knife, with a remark, and got onto
his heart. He only coughed and kept telling me in a crying whisper to
go away. Nicholas pushed me back--that's how I got this face. What was
the use? I might as well have hit a pudding. Even talk didn't move
him. In a little it sent me cold." He stopped abruptly, grew sullen;
it was evident that he would say no more in that direction. Woolfolk
opened another subject:

"Life, Halvard," he said, "is uncertain; perhaps tonight I shall find
it absolutely unreliable. What I am getting at is this: if anything
happens to me--death, to be accurate--the _Gar_ is yours, the ketch
and a sum of money. It is secured to you in this box, which you will
deliver to my address in Boston. There is another provision that I'll
mention merely to give you the opportunity to repeat it verbally from
my lips: the bulk of anything I have, in the possibility we are
consideri