lowly onto the tote-road and glanced again toward
the shack. A spark, larger than the others, shot out of the stovepipe
and lodged upon the bark roof, where it glowed for a moment before
going out. The man watched it in sudden fascination.

He halted the team and stared long at the spot where the spark had
vanished in blackness, but which in the brain of the man appeared as an
ever-widening circle of red, which spread until it included the whole
roof in its fiery embrace, and crept slowly down the log walls.

So realistic was the picture that he seemed to hear the crackle and
roar of the leaping flames. He drew a trembling hand across his eyes,
and when he looked again the shack stood silent and black in the
half-light of the starlit clearing.

"God!" he mumbled aloud. "If it had only happened thataway----" He
passed his tongue over his dry, thick lips. "Why not?" he argued
querulously. "Moncrossen said 'twa'nt safe to bushwhack him like I
wanted to--said how I ain't got nerve nor brains to stand no
investigation.

"But if he'd git burnt up in the shack, that's safer yet. He got that
booze somewhere--some one knows he had it. He got spiflicated, built a
roarin' fire in the old stove--an' there y'are, plain as daylight. No
brains! I'll show him who's got brains--an' there won't be no
investigation, neither."

He drew the team to the side of the tote-road and, slipping the halters
over the bridles, tied them to a stout sapling and made his way toward
the shack.

One look satisfied him that the sleeper had not stirred, and
noiselessly he slipped the heavy hasp of the door over the staple and
secured it with the wooden pin.

He collected dry branches, piling them directly beneath the small,
square window which yawned high in the wall. Higher and higher the pile
grew until its top was almost on a level with the sill.

His hands trembled as he applied the match. Tiny tongues of flame
struggled upward through the branches, lengthening and widening as
fresh twigs ignited, and in his ears the crackle and snap of the dry
wood sounded as the rattle of musketry.

His first impulse as the flames gained headway was to fly--to place
distance between himself and the scene of his crime. But he dared not
go. His knees shook, and he stared with blanched face in horrid
fascination as the flames roared and crackled through the brushwood.

They were curling about the window now, and the whole clearing was
light as day. He slunk