g!" cried the man, and he sprang to his feet
and seized his gun. "There is vengeance! Friends, will you help me
bury my dead?"

"Yes, we will help," I said. He brought a spade and hoe from a little hut
near the stream, and we dug a broad and shallow trench and laid the
bodies in it.

"There is one missing," said the man, looking about him. "Where is he?"

"He is here," said Spiltdorph, opening his coat. "He is not dead. He may
yet live."

The father looked at the boy a moment, then fell on his knees and
kissed him.

"Thank God!" he cried, and the tears burst forth. We waited in silence
until the storm of grief was past. At last he wrapped the coat about the
child again, and came to us where we stood beside the grave.

"Friends," he said, "does either of you know the burial service? These
were virtuous and Christian women, and would wish a Christian burial."

Spiltdorph sadly shook his head, and the man turned to me. Could I do it?
I trembled at the thought. Yet how could I refuse?

"I know the service," I said, and took my place at the head of the grave.

The mists of evening were stealing up from the forest about us, and there
was no sound save the plashing of the brook over the stones at our feet.
Then it all faded from before me and I was standing again in a willow
grove with an open grave afar off.

"'I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord,'" It was not my
voice, but another ringing up to heaven from beside me. And the voice
kept on and on until the last amen.

We filled in the shallow grave and covered it with logs and rocks. Night
was at hand before we finished.

"You must come with us," said Spiltdorph to the stranger. "The doctor at
the fort will do what he can for the child. If you still think of
vengeance, you can march with us against the Indians and the French who
set them on."

He made a gesture of assent, and we set off through the forest.

"Stewart," asked Spiltdorph, in a low voice, after we had walked some
time in silence, "how does it happen you knew the burial service?"

"I have read it many times in the prayer-book," I answered simply.
"Moreover, I heard it one morning beside my mother's grave, and again
beside my grandfather's. I am not like to forget it."

He walked on for a moment, and then came close to me and caught my
hand in his.

"Forgive me," he said softly. "You have done a good and generous
thing. I can judge how much it cost you," and we said no more until