le
against his ribs, and heard a disguised voice ordering, "Come with us."

Hump did not flinch or give back. Neither did he obey. Instead, he
laughed with a hollow callousness and replied, "Shoot ef ye've a mind
ter. I hain't goin' ter stir a step ter foller ye."

But masked men closed in and caught his misshapen elbows, and the voice
that had first accosted him went on in the level tones of its disguise:

"We don't aim ter harm ye, Hump; leastways not yit--but we aims ter show
ye somethin' we've brought ye fer a gift."

They led him, too dull and apathetic of spirit to resist, too
indifferent of any consequence to protest, out and across his own
fog-wrapped yard and down to the sledge-trail road.

There in the bleak obscurity of blackness his eyes could make out a
squad of silent figures, but nothing more.

"Ye kain't rightly see hit yit, Hump," announced the spokesman, "but
thar's a fodder-sledge standin' thar at ther aidge of ther road--an' on
hit thar's somethin' thet b'longs ter ye. Hyar's a pine faggot thet's
soaked with kerosene--an' hyar's matches ter light hit with--but--on
pain of death--wait twell we've done gone away."

Into the heavy indifference of the old man's mood flashed a sickening
shaft of dread. He took the torch and the matches, and then with a
cowardice that was alien to his character he stood trembling like a
frightened child, while the dark figures disappeared as though they had
melted.

Hump Doane was afraid to kindle his torch, not afraid because of any
threat to himself, but terrified for what he might see.

Then he braced himself, and with his back turned, struck the match and
saw the guttering flames leap greedily upon the oiled pine splinter.

Slowly he wheeled, and his eyes fell on the illuminated sledge--his own
sledge stolen from his barn--and there stretched lifeless, and
shamefully marked with the defacement of the hangman's rope, lay what
was left of his son.

Old Hump Doane, who had never stepped aside from any danger, who had
never known tears since babyhood, stood for a moment gulping, then the
light dropped from his hand and the agony of his shriek went quavering
across the silent hills and reechoed in the woods.

The pine splinter burned out in the wet grass and old Hump lay beside it
insensible, but after a while he awakened out of that merciful sleep and
crawled on his hands and knees over to where the sledge stood, and he
knelt there with his face buried on the