pare me. I'm the father of six
children that depend on me for a living. Give me a chance to prove what
I say--oh, God!--oh, God, oh, God, have mercy!"

The hand holding the revolver relaxed. With a subdued cry of terror,
Bradley was on his feet, glaring at the accusing sight. He saw Henley
enter the wood and move on unsuspectingly toward the horrible spectre
which swung across his path. Indeed, Henley passed through it as through
a vapor, still whistling. With a cry still in his throat, Bradley dashed
into the wood and fled the spot.

Henley heard the sound of pattering feet and paused for a moment,
looking about him wonderingly. It wasn't an animal suddenly frightened
from its lair, for the weird, guttural cry was human. At the side of the
road stood a huge oak, on the trunk of which there was a grayish,
barkless strip about the width and length of a medium-sized man, and
hanging from a bough above was an uprooted grape-vine. These natural
objects would have attracted Henley's attention had he known how they
had been masquerading in his behalf. As it was, however, he resumed his
whistling, and, barely reminded by the spot of the recent encounter, he
cheerfully pursued his way. He was very tired, and looked forward with
eagerness to the moment when he could get into bed.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Henley's wife had been gone two weeks and had not written a line either
to him or the Wrinkles, when, one morning just after breakfast, as old
Jason stood on the front porch, he espied, far down the road, the Warren
carriage, with Ned in the driver's seat. The back part of the vehicle
was not in sight, but Wrinkle had seen enough to convince him that his
ex-daughter-in-law was returning, and he promptly and gleefully
announced the fact to his wife and Henley in the dining-room. They all
went to the porch and waited for the now-hidden carriage to round the
bend. For a short distance Ned's battered silk top-hat and the tip of
his whip flitting along above the tasselled corn-stalks which intervened
between the house and the road were the only evidence of the vehicle's
approach, and then it turned sharply in at the wagon-gate.

"My Lord, the dang thing's empty!" Wrinkle cried. "I wonder if she fell
out comin' down the mountain, an' Ned never noticed it?"

A full and rather startling explanation was furnished by the negro, when
he had reined in at the steps. Ben Warren was dead and was to be buried
the next day. Mrs. Henley had