ining to swallow the
thickening in his throat. "He is out there--hanging by his neck--dead!"

_Dead!_ He emphasized that word--spoke it twice.

Father Roland still did not answer. He was getting into his clothes
mechanically, his face curiously ashen, his eyes neither horrified nor
startled, but with a stunned look in them. He did not speak when he went
to the door and out into the night. David followed, and in a moment they
stood close to the thing that was hanging where Tavish's meat should
have been. The moon threw a vivid sort of spotlight on it. It was
grotesque and horrible--very bad to look at, and unforgettable. Tavish
had not died easily. He seemed to shriek that fact at them as he swung
there dead; even now he seemed more terrified than cold. His teeth
gleamed a little. That, perhaps, was the worst of it all. And his hands
were clenched tight. David noticed that. Nothing seemed relaxed about
him.

Not until he had looked at Tavish for perhaps sixty full seconds did
Father Roland speak. He had recovered himself, judging from his voice.
It was quiet and unexcited. But in his first words, unemotional as they
were, there was a significance that was almost frightening.

"At last! She made him do that!"

He was speaking to himself, looking straight into Tavish's agonized
face. A great shudder swept through David. _She!_ He wanted to cry out.
He wanted to know. But the Missioner now had his hands on the gruesome
thing in the moonlight, and he was saying:

"There is still warmth in his body. He has not been long dead. He hanged
himself, I should say, not more than half an hour before we reached the
cabin. Give me a hand, David!"

With a mighty effort David pulled himself together. After all, it was
nothing more than a dead man hanging there. But his hands were like ice
as he seized hold of it. A knife gleamed in the moonlight over Tavish's
head as the Missioner cut the rope. They lowered Tavish to the snow, and
David went into the cabin for a blanket. Father Roland wrapped the
blanket carefully about the body so that it would not freeze to the
ground. Then they entered the cabin. The Missioner threw off his coat
and built up the fire. When he turned he seemed to notice for the first
time the deathly pallor in David's face.

"It shocked you--when you found it there," he said. "_Ugh!_ I don't
wonder. But I ... David, I didn't tell you I was expecting something
like this. I have feared for Tavish. And to-night w