man seemed to catch
it and reflect it in their own faces as they stared at him.

Eugene turned quickly to his father. "Aren't they in the house?" he
asked.

"No, they ain't," returned David, with his eyes still on Abner's
face.

"Sure they ain't up chamber?"

"No; I was home a good half-hour before Madelon came. There wasn't a
soul in the house, and nobody could have come home since without my
knowing it."

"They didn't come home this noon either," said Eugene.

"Thought you said they'd gone to see to their traps on West
Mountain?" David rejoined.

"Thought they had when they didn't come." Eugene turned impatiently
on Abner. "Where do you think they've gone--what do you mean by
looking so?" he cried.

Abner dug his heel into the snow. "Don't know," he returned, in a
surly voice.

"What do you suspect, then? Good God! can't you speak out?"

Abner's features were heavier than his brother's--his speech and
manner slower. He paused a second, even then; then he turned towards
the house, and spoke, with his face away from them, with a curious
directness and taciturnity. "Didn't go to the traps on West
Mountain," he said, then; "went there myself. They hadn't been
there--no tracks; was home before father was to-night. Louis and
Richard hadn't come. Went down to the village; hadn't been there."

"You don't mean Louis and Richard have run away?" demanded David.

"Both their guns and their powder-horns and shot-bags are gone," said
Abner.

"They would have taken them anyway," said Louis.

"The chest in Louis's chamber is unlocked and the money he kept in
the till is gone, and his fiddle is gone, and the cider-brandy and
wormwood bottle to bathe his arm with, and two shoulders of pork out
of the cellar, and a sack of potatoes, and the blankets off his and
Richard's beds are gone too," said Abner. He began to move towards
the house.

His father made a bound after him and grasped his arm. "What do you
mean?" he cried out. "What do you think they've run away for?"

"Know as much as I do," replied Abner. He wrenched his arm away and
strode on towards the house. Then David Hautville and his son Eugene
stood looking at each other with a surmise of horror growing in their
eyes.

"What does he mean?" David whispered, hoarsely.

Eugene shook his head.

Presently Eugene went into the barn and fell to feeding the roan
mare, and David plunged heavily back to the house. He and Abner sat
one on each side of the fir