looking at one another, like a man and his love.

* * * * *

At M'Adam's word, Owd Bob looked up, and for the first time saw his
master.

He seemed in nowise startled, but trotted over to him. There was nothing
fearful in his carriage, no haunting blood-guiltiness in the true gray
eyes which never told a lie, which never, dog-like, failed to look you
in the face. Yet his tail was low, and, as he stopped at his master's
feet, he was quivering. For he, too, knew, and was not unmoved.

For weeks he had tracked the Killer; for weeks he had followed him as he
crossed Kenmuir, bound on his bloody errands; yet always had lost him on
the Marches. Now, at last, he had run him to ground. Yet his heart went
out to his enemy in his distress.

"I thowt t'had been yo', lad," the Master whispered, his hand on the
dark head at his knee--"I thowt t'had bin yo'!"

* * * * *

Rooted to the ground, the three watched the scene between M'Adam and his
Wull.

In the end the Master was whimpering; Andrew crying; and David turned
his back.

At length, silent, they moved away.

"Had I--should I go to him" asked David hoarsely, nodding toward his
father.

"Nay, nay, lad," the Master replied. "Yon's not a matter for a mon's
friends."

So they marched out of the Devil's Bowl, and left those two alone
together.

* * * * *

A little later, as they trampled along, James Moore heard little
pattering, staggering footsteps behind.

He stopped, and the other two went on.

"Man," a voice whispered, and a face, white and pitiful, like a mother's
pleading for her child, looked into his--"Man, ye'll no tell them a' I'd
no like 'em to ken 'twas ma Wullie. Think an 't had bin yer ain dog."

"You may trust me!" the other answered thickly.

The little man stretched out a palsied hand.

"Gie us yer hand on't. And G-God bless ye, James Moore!"

So these two shook hands in the moonlight, with none to witness it but
the God who made them.

And that is why the mystery of the Black Killer is yet unsolved in
the Daleland. Many have surmised; besides those three only one other
knows--knows now which of those two he saw upon a summer night was the
guilty, which the innocent. And Postie Jim tells no man.

Chapter XXX. THE TAILLESS TYKE AT BAY

ON the following morning there was a sheep-auction at the Dalesman's
Daughter.

Early as many of