mouth.--trust, lady, that
ye enjoy the victuals?"

"I do, indeed," answered the girl, "and if the cooking were less
perfect, I should count this as a feast."

"Yis, yis; I understand ye," answered the old man. "The sound of the
tumblin' water be pleasant, and the eye eats with the mouth," and he
glanced at the green woods that stretched away, and the brightly-colored
clouds that hung like fleece of gold in the western sky.

"The barbarian eats from a trough," remarked Herbert; "civilize him, and
he erects a table; and as you add to his refinement, he adorns that
table until the furniture of it magnifies the feast and the guests think
more of the beauty of the adornments than of the food they swallow."

And so with pleasant converse the meal progressed. Soon the sun declined
and darkness began to thicken in the pines. The table was moved to one
side, the dishes cleansed and the fire lighted for the evening. With the
darkness silence had fallen upon the group,--not that silence which is
awkward and oppressive, or which comes from lack of thought, but that
fine silence, rather, which is only the thin shadow of the reflective
mood, and because the thought is inward and overfull.

And so the four sat in silence by the fire. Above, a few great stars
shone warmly. Here and there the rapids flashed white through the gloom.
From a huge pine on the other side of the pool a horned owl challenged
the darkness with his ponderous call.

Suddenly the man broke the silence,--broke it with a question which led
to a remarkable conversation, and a tragical result. And the question
was this:--

"Friend, answer me this question: _If a man take a life, should he give
his own life in atonement for the dreadful deed?_"

III

"_If a man take a life, should he give his own life in atonement for the
dreadful deed?_"

Such was the question that the man asked. He was looking at the trapper
at the time,--looking at him steadily; but the sound of his voice as he
put the question did not seem to give personal direction to the solemn
interrogation; it seemed rather the echo of a reflection, as if his own
mind in its communings had come upon the terrible question, and the
words, without volition of his own, which framed it into speech, had
passed out of his mouth.

He was looking at the trapper, as we said, and the trapper was looking
into the fire,--the light of which, that came and went in flashes,
brought distinctly out the settled gr