nded them and in the crash of thunder that burst at the same
instant, filling the valley with deafening roar, the sharp report of a
double pistol-shot was swallowed up.

* * * * *

An hour later Darley Champers, drenched with rain, stumbled down the
crooked trail in the semi-darkness. The cool air came fanning out of the
west and a faint rift along the horizon line gave promise of a glorious
April sunset.

As Darley reached the twist in the trail which John Jacobs always
dreaded, the place Thaine Aydelot and Leigh Shirley had invested with
sweet memories, he suddenly drew his rein and stared in horror.

Lying in the rift with his head toward the deep waters of Little Wolf
Creek lay Thomas Smith, scowling with unseeing eyes at the fast clearing
sky. While on the farther side of the road lay the still form of John
Jacobs, rain-beaten and smeared with mud, as if he had struggled backward
in his death-throes.

As Champers bent tenderly over him, the smile on his lips took away the
awfulness of the sight, and the serenity of the rain-drenched face rested
as visible token of an abundant entrance into eternal peace.

Grass River and Big Wolf settlements had never before known a tragedy so
appalling as the assassination of John Jacobs at the hands of an "unknown"
man. Hans Wyker had gone to Kansas City on the day before the event and
Wykerton never saw his face again. Rosie Gimpke, who did not know the
stranger's name, and Darley Champers, who thought he did, believed nothing
could be gained by talking, so they held their peace. And Thomas Smith
went "unknown" back to the dust of the prairie in the Grass River
graveyard.

The coroner tried faithfully to locate the blame. But as Jacobs was
unarmed and was shot from the front, and the stranger had only one bullet
in his revolver and was shot from behind, and as nobody lost nor gained by
not untangling the mystery, the affair after a nine days' complete
threshing, went into local history, the place of sepulchre.

CHAPTER XXI

JANE AYDELOT'S WILL

Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice,
O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee--rest.
--Snow Bound.

Darley CH