. "Somebody else shot him from
the woods. My gun went off accidental."

Silence fell again upon the little group of men. They did not look at
Jeffrey. They had heard but one shot. The shot from the woods had been
too muffled for them to hear.

Again Stocking broke the silence.

"What difference does it make," he said. "Any of us would have done it
if we could."

"But I didn't! I tell you I didn't," shouted Jeffrey. "The shot from
the woods got ahead of me. That man was facing me. He was shot from
behind!"

Old Erskine Beasley took command.

"What difference does it make, as Stocking says. We've got live men
and women and children to think about to-day," he said. "Straighten
him out decent. Then divide and go around the fire both ways. The
alarm can't travel half fast enough for this breeze, and it's rising,
too," he added.

"But I tell you--!" Jeffrey began again. Then he saw how useless it
was.

He looked up the hill and saw his horse, which even in the face of
this unheard-of terror had preferred to venture back toward his
master.

He caught the horse, mounted, and started to ride south with the party
that was to try to get around the fire from that side.

He rode with them. They were his friends. But he was not with them.
There was a circle drawn around him. He was separated from them. They
probably did not feel it, but he felt it. It is a circle which draws
itself ever around a man who, justly or unjustly, is thought guilty of
blood. Men may applaud his deed. Men may say that they themselves
would wish to have done it. But the circle is there.

Then Jeffrey thought of his Mother. She would not see that circle.

Also he thought of a girl. The girl had only a few hours before said
that she had sometimes seen even murder in his eyes.

V

MON PERE JE ME 'CUSE

Down the wide slope of Bald Mountain the fire raved exultingly,
leaping and skipping fantastically as it ran. It was a prisoner
released from the bondage of the elements that had held it. It was a
spirit drunk with sudden-found freedom. It was a flood raging down a
valley. It was a maniac at large.

The broad base of the mountain where it sat upon the backs of the
lower hills spread out fanwise to a width of five miles. The fire
spread its wings as it came down until it swept the whole apron of the
mountain. A five-mile wave of solid flame rolled down upon the hills.

Sleepy cattle on the hills rising for their early browse missed t