n his back, and knocking
him flat as though he had been clubbed.

Leverett, stunned, sat staring, motionless, clutching the rifle from the
muzzle of which a delicate stain of vapour floated and disappeared
through a rosy bar of sunshine.

In the intense stillness of the place, suddenly the dead man made a
sound; and the trap-robber nearly fainted.

But it was only air escaping from the slowly collapsing lungs; and
Leverett, ashy pale, shaking, got to his feet and leaned heavily against
an oak tree, his eyes never stirring from the sprawling thing on the
ground.

* * * * *

If it were a minute or a year he stood there he could never have
reckoned the space of time. The sun's level rays glimmered ruddy
through the woods. A green fly appeared, buzzing about the dead man.
Another zig-zagged through the sunshine, lacing it with streaks of
greenish fire. Others appeared, whirling, gyrating, filling the silence
with their humming. And still Leverett dared not budge, dared not
search the dead and take from it that for which the dead had died.

A little breeze came by and stirred the bushy hair on Kloon's head and
fluttered the ferns around him where he lay.

Two delicate, pure-white butterflies -- rare survivors of a native
species driven from civilization into the wilderness by the advent of
the foreign white -- fluttered in airy play over the dead man, drifting
away into the woodland at times, yet always returning to wage a fairy
combat above the heap of soiled clothing which once had been a man.

Then, near in the ferns, the withering fronds twitched, and a red
squirrel sprung his startling alarm, squeaking, squealing, chattering
his opinion of murder; and Leverett, shaking with shock, wiped icy sweat
from his face, laid aside his rifle, and took his first stiff step
toward the dead man.

But as he bent over he changed his mind, turned, reeling a little, then
crept slowly out among the pitcher-plants, searching about him as though
sniffing.

In a few minutes he discovered what he was looking for; took his
bearings; carefully picked his way back over a leafy crust that trembled
under his cautious tread.

He bent over Kloon and, from the left inside coat pocket, he drew the
packet and placed it inside his own flannel shirt.

Then, turning his back to the dead, he squatted down and clutched
Kloon's burly ankles, as a man grasps the handles of a wheelbarrow to
draw it after him.

Dragging, rolling, bumping