e was thinking that soon both his arms would
be strong enough to use it again, and she was happy that he would need
it only for hunting.

The man outside had by this time gained the dooryard and stood beside
the tree trunk where the shadow was deepest. He raised his long barrel
and steadied it against the bark, not knowing that as coincidence would
have it the metal rested against those initials which had been carved
there generations before, making of the tree itself a monument to the
dead.

Through the raised window he could see two heads in the lamplight; those
of Parish Thornton and his wife, and it was easy to draw his sights upon
the point just below the left shoulder blade of the man's back. Old Man
Rowlett sat too far to one side to be visible.

High in the top of the walnut a shattered branch had hung in a hair
balance since the great storm had stricken it. High winds had more than
once threatened to bring this dead wood down, yet it had remained
there, out of reach and almost out of sight but still precariously
lodged.

The wind to-night was light and capricious, yet it was just as the man,
who was using that tree as an ambush, established touch between finger
and trigger, that the splintered piece of timber broke away from its
support and ripped its way noisily downward until a crotch caught and
held it. Startled by that unexpected alarm from above, given as though
the tree had been a living sentinel, the rifleman jerked his gun upward
as he fired.

The bullet passed through the window to bury itself with a spiteful thud
in the wall above the hearth. Both men and the woman came to their feet
with astonished faces turned toward the window.

Parish Thornton reached for the pistol which he had laid on the mantel,
but before he had gained the door he saw Dorothy flash past him, seizing
his rifle as she went, and a few seconds later he heard the clean-lipped
snap of its voice in a double report.

"I got him," panted the young woman, as her husband reached her side.
"Git down low on ther ground!" She did likewise as she added in a
guarded whisper, "I shot at his legs, so he's still got his rifle an'
both hands. He drapped right thar by ther fence."

They went back into the house and old Jim Rowlett said grimly: "Now let
me give an order or two. Thornton, you fotch yore pistol. Gal, you bring
thet rifle-gun an' give me a lantern. Then come out ther back door an'
do what I tells ye."

A few minutes later