questions on
every tongue:--"What has become of Charles Clancy?" and "Where is his
body?"

Clancy still in it, living and breathing, has his reasons for keeping
the fact concealed. He has succeeded in doing so till this night; till
encountering Simeon Woodley by the side of his mother's tomb.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now on Woodley's own hearth, after all has been explained, Clancy
once more returns to speak of the purpose he has but half communicated
to the hunter.

"You say, Sime, I can depend upon you to stand by me?"

"Ye may stake yur life on that. Had you iver reezun to misdoubt me?"

"No--never."

"But, Charley, ye hain't tolt me why ye appeared a bit displeezed at
meetin' me the night. That war a mystery to me."

"There was nothing in it, Sime. Only that I didn't care to meet, or be
seen by, any one till I should be strong enough to carry out my purpose.
It would, in all probability, be defeated were the world to know I am
still alive. That secret I shall expect you to keep."

"You kin trust to me for that; an' yur plans too. Don't be afeerd to
confide them to Sime Woodley. Maybe he may help ye to gettin' 'em
ship-shape."

Clancy is gratified at this offer of aid. For he knows that in the
backwoodsman he will find his best ally; that besides his friendship
tested and proved, he is the very man to be with him in the work he has
cut out for himself--a purpose which has engrossed his thoughts ever
since consciousness came back after his long dream of delirium. It is
that so solemnly proclaimed, as he stood in the cemetery, with no
thought of any one overhearing him.

He had then three distinct passions impelling him to the stern threat--
three reasons, any of them sufficient to ensure his keeping it. First,
his own wrongs. True the attempt at assassinating him had failed; still
the criminality remained the same. But the second had succeeded. His
mother's corpse was under the cold sod at his feet, her blood calling to
him for vengeance. And still another passion prompted him to seek it--
perhaps the darkest of all, jealousy in its direst shape, the sting from
a love promised but unbestowed. For the coon-hunter had never told Jupe
of Helen Armstrong's letter. Perhaps, engrossed with other cares, he
had forgotten it; or, supposing the circumstance known to all, had not
thought it worth communicating. Clancy, therefore, up to that hour,