two men turned and eyed each other; the one grim, the other
sardonic: both dishevelled and suspicious.

"Well?''

"Weel?"

A pause and, careful scrutiny.

"There's blood on your coat."

"And on yours."

Together they walked hack into the little moonlit hollow. There lay the
murdered sheep in a pool of blood. Plain it was to see whence the marks
on their coats came. M'Adam touched the victim's head with his foot. The
movement exposed its throat. With a shudder he replaced it as it was.

The two men stood back and eyed one another.

"What are yo' doin' here?"

"After the Killer. What are you?"

"After the Killer?"

"Hoo did you come?"

"Up this path," pointing to the one behind him. "Hoo did you?"

"Up this."

Silence; then again:

"I'd ha' had him but for yo'."

"I did have him, but ye tore me aff,"

A pause again.

"Where's yer gray dog?" This time the challenge was unmistakable.

"I sent him after the Killer. Wheer's your Red Wull?"

"At hame, as I tell't ye before."

"Yo' mean yo' left him there?" M'Adam's fingers twitched.

"He's where I left him."

James Moore shrugged his shoulders. And the other began:

"When did yer dog leave ye?"

"When the Killer came past."

"Ye wad say ye missed him then?"

"I say what I mean."

"Ye say he went after the Killer. Noo the Killer was here," pointing to
the dead sheep. "Was your dog here, too?"

"If he had been he'd been here still."

"Onless he went over the Fall!"

"That was the Killer, yo' fule."

"Or your dog."

"There was only _one_ beneath me. I felt him."

"Just so," said M'Adam, and laughed. The other's brow contracted.

"An' that was a big un," he said slowly. The little man stopped his
cackling.

"There ye lie," he said, smoothly. "He was small."

They looked one another full in the eyes.

"That's a matter of opinion," said the Master.

"It's a matter of fact," said the other.

The two stared at one another, silent and stern, each trying to fathom
the other's soul; then they turned again to the brink of the Fall.
Beneath them, plain to see, was the splash and furrow in the shingle
marking the Killer's line of retreat. They looked at one another again,
and then each departed the way he had come to give his version of the
story.

"'If Th' Owd Un had kept wi' me, I should ha' had him."

And--

"I tell ye I did have him, but James Moore pulled me aff. Strange, too,
his dog not bein' wi' him!"

Chapter XIX