his voice. "I have a friend
here and will call him," he said, "and we will carry Steevie away to the
boat, and all go home together." So he called Coristine, and they picked
the dead man up, the dead man from whose smooth, girl-like face the
disguise had been torn away, and bore him painfully but tenderly over
the rough fallen timber safely to the other side, the woman following.
Ben shivered, as he saw the strange procession come down the hill, but,
like the Captain, he uttered neither word nor cry. The bearers propped
the dead man up against the middle thwart with the face towards the bow,
and then set the woman down beside the Captain, who said: "Come along,
my dear, and we'll see you both safely home." The old man's honest face
won the poor sister's confidence, as she took her seat beside him and
left her Stevy to the care of the minister and Coristine. With all their
might and main paddled the Captain and Ben. Joyfully, all the company
saw stretch after stretch of the lake behind them, until, at last, they
passed the fishermen and landed on the shore. The minister and the
lawyer laid their coats upon the boards of the log shelter, and placed
their burden upon them. "Let him sleep a bit," said Mr. Errol to the mad
woman; "let him sleep, and you help my friend to get a few flowers to
take home with him." So Coristine took his candle-box from the floor of
the punt, and, with his strange companion, gathered the skullcaps and
loose-strifes and sundews that grew by the shore. She knew the flowers
and where to find them, and filled the lawyer's improvised vasculum
almost to overflowing with many a new specimen. He only took them to
humour her, for what cared he for all the flowers that bloom when death,
and such a death, was but a few yards away.

Ben Toner brought the fishers back with two good strings of fish; but,
when they heard the story, they threw them into the lake. Ben was a
handy man. He cut down two stout poles, and with leather wood bark
constructed a litter, light but strong. On this the sleeping detective
was laid, and while Mr. Errol and the Captain stumbled through the
ground hemlock on either side of the now cheerful mad woman, the other
four carried their ghastly load, with scalding tears streaming from
every eye. "S'haylp me," said Ben to the lawyer, "ef I don't hunt the
man as killed him till he dies or me." After a painful journey they
reached the Richards' house, and Richards was at home. Mr. Perrown