from the usual shots you always heard
in Oakshotts. Then, after going without any event for half a mile or more,
I saw the woodstack ahead on my way, and that minded me of Owlet's warning
and the chance it might be true. A very handy place for any man to lie in
wait for an enemy on the woodman's path; so I stopped, crept off into the
undergrowth and reckoned to come up behind the stack, so as if there was
to be any surprises, I'd give 'em. But the surprise was mine
notwithstanding. I stalked the stack as cautious as though it had been an
elephant, and crept up inch by inch through the laurels with my blood warm
and my senses very much alive and my revolver at full cock. And at last I
was parted from the danger-point by no more than a screen of leaves. But
not a soul I saw, and I was just pushing out with a good bit of relief in
my mind, when my eyes fell on the ground and I marked a man lying so still
as a snake behind the pile with his head not a yard from the path that ran
alongside of it! He was waiting and watching; but he'd not heard me; so
there lay Tom Bond sure enough, looking for me to come along; and there
stood I behind him not ten yards distant. The dusk was coming down by now
and the wind sighing in the naked branches overhead, and I didn't see no
use in wasting time. I couldn't have wished to get him in a more awkward
position for himself; so I covered him with my revolver and I stepped out
quick as lightning, and afore he could move, my muzzle was at his ear.

"Now, you damned scoundrel," I said, "the boot is on the other leg, I
reckon!"

But not a muscle of the man twitched, and then I got the horror of my
life, for Tom Bond was dead. He lay flat on his face with his hands
stretched afore him, and a revolver, the daps of mine, had fallen from his
hand and dropped a foot away from it. And, looking close, I saw a big
dabble of blood about him, that had come from his body and his mouth.

'Twas a very ugly situation for me, and nobody saw that quicker than what
I did; but I kept my nerve and didn't lift a finger to the man after I was
satisfied that not a spark of life remained in him. I said to myself as I
ran home that all I could do was to tell naked truth and hope for the
best, though at that moment I couldn't fail to see the truth as I told it
was bound to look a thought fanciful to the unbiased eye. But I went
straight to Sir Walter, and gave him word for word, leaving out no item of
the story and pu