enials, Isom's dinning on that one theme,' and why the boy
could not go to Rome and face Martha, with her own blood on his hands.
Isom's true motive, too, was plain, and the miller told it brokenly to
Steve, who rode away with a low whistle to tell it broadcast, and left
the old man rocking his body like a woman.

An hour later he rode back at a gallop to tell old Gabe to search the
river bank below the mill. He did not believe Isom dead. It was just his
feelin', he said, and one fact, that nobody else thought important--the
Brayton canoe was gone.

"Ef he was jus' scamped by a ball," said Steve, "you kin bet he tuk the
boat, 'n' he's down thar in the bushes somewhar now waitin' fer dark."

And about dusk, sure enough, old Gabe, wandering hopefully through the
thicket below the mill, stumbled over the canoe stranded in the bushes.
In the new mud were the tracks of a boy's bare feet leading into the
thicket, and the miller made straight for home. When he opened his door
he began to shake as if with palsy. A figure was seated on the hearth
against the chimney, and the firelight was playing over the face and
hair. The lips were parted, and the head hung limply to the breast. The
clothes were torn to rags, and one shoulder was bare. Through the upper
flesh of it and close to the neck was an ugly burrow clotted with blood.
The boy was asleep.

Three nights later, in Hazlan, Sherd Raines told the people of Isom's
flight down the mountain, across the river, and up the steep to save his
life by losing it. Before he was done, one gray-headed figure pressed
from the darkness on one side and stood trembling under the dips. It was
old Steve Brayton, who had fired from the cabin at Isom, and dropping
his Winchester, he stumbled forward with the butt of his pistol held out
to Raines. A Marcum appeared on the other side with the muzzle of his
Winchester down. Raines raised both hands then and imperiously called on
every man who had a weapon to come forward and give it up. Like children
they came, Marcums and Braytons, piling their arms on the rock before
him, shaking hands right and left, and sitting together on the mourner's
bench.

Old Brayton was humbled thereafter. He wanted to shake hands with Steve
Marcum and make friends. But Steve grinned, and said, "Not yit," and
went off into the bushes. A few days later he went to Hazlan of his own
accord and gave up his gun to Raines. He wouldn't shake hands with old
Brayton, he said,