saw the two young people halt and turn to look, and
after a moment he saw the boy come slowly forward, staring. He heard him
say:

"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard
the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young
Arthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under
the high wall.

Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever
power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the
ultimate pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch
over the wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he
called down to the lad below in a loud whisper:

"Benham! Benham!"

The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after a
moment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard her
say:

"Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away! Oh, come away quickly!"

Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said:

"Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I come
from your family--from Helen!"

To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run toward where the
girl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation, Ste. Marie
threw himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by his
hands, and dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover his
balance, he stumbled forward, shouting:

"Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"

Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistle
sound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then whence the
shrill call had come, but afterward he knew that Coira O' Hara had blown
it. And now, as he ran forward toward the two who stood at a distance
staring at him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.

A man came running down among the black-boled trees, a strange, squat,
gnomelike man whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He held
something in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threw
this thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause in
his odd, scrambling run.

Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee.
He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him; but as
he whirled about he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard a
noise and knew that the gnomelike running man had shot him. He faced
about once more toward the