nd carried her into
the house. Chichester followed. All his faculties were benumbed, and he
seemed to be walking in a dream. It seemed that no such horrible
confusion as that by which he was surrounded could have the remotest
relation to reality.

Nevertheless, it did not add to his surprise and consternation to find,
when Abe had placed the girl on her bed, that she was dead. A little
red spot on her forehead, half-hidden by the glossy curling hair, showed
that whoever held the rifle aimed it well.

"Why, honey," said Abe, wiping away the slight blood-stain that showed
itself, "you struck your head a'in' a nail. Git up! you oughtn't to be
a-gwine on this away before comp'ny."

"I tell you she is dead!" cried Chichester. "She has been murdered!" The
girl's mother had already realized this fact, and her tearless grief was
something pitiful to behold. The gray-haired grandfather had also
realized it.

"I'd druther see her a-lyin' thar dead," he exclaimed, raising his weak
and trembling hands heavenward, "than to see her Tuck Peevy's wife."

"Why, gentermen!" exclaimed Abe, "how _kin_ she be dead? I oughter know
my own gal, I reckon. Many's an' many's the time she's worried me,
a-playin' 'possum, an' many's an' many's the time has I sot by her
waitin' tell she let on to wake up. Don't you all pester wi' her. She'll
wake up therreckly."

At this juncture Tuck Peevy walked into the room. There was a strange
glitter in his eyes, a new energy in his movements. Chichester sprang at
him, seized him by the throat, and dragged him to the bedside.

"You cowardly, skulking murderer!" he exclaimed, "see what you have
done!"

Peevy's sallow face grew ashen. He seemed to shrink and collapse under
Chichester's hand. His breath came thick and short. His long, bony
fingers clutched nervously at his clothes.

"I aimed at the hat!" he exclaimed huskily.

He would have leaned over the girl, but Chichester flung him away from
the bedside, and he sank down in a corner, moaning and shaking. Abe took
no notice of Peevy's entrance, and paid no attention to the crouching
figure mumbling in the corner, except, perhaps, so far as he seemed to
recognize in Chichester's attack on Peevy a somewhat vigorous protest
against his own theory; for, when there was comparative quiet in the
room, Hightower raised himself, and exclaimed, in a tone that showed
both impatience and excitement:

"Why, great God A'mighty, gentermen, don't go on that way