aplain had thundered at him. And then, as now, he
thought of the enemy who had betrayed him to the law, and had sworn away
his liberty, and had robbed him of everything in life except a fierce
longing for the day when he could strike back and strike to kill. And
then, while he looked back hard into the chaplain's eyes, and now, while
he splashed through the yellow mud thinking of that Christmas Eve, Buck
shook his head; and then, as now, his sullen heart answered:

"Mine!"

The big flakes drifted to crotch and twig and limb. They gathered on the
brim of Buck's slouch hat, filled out the wrinkles in his big coat,
whitened his hair and his long mustache, and sifted into the yellow,
twisting path that guided his horse's feet.

High above he could see through the whirling snow now and then the gleam
of a red star. He knew it was the light from his enemy's window; but
somehow the chaplain's voice kept ringing in his ears, and every time he
saw the light he couldn't help thinking of the story of the Star that
the chaplain told that Christmas Eve, and he dropped his eyes by and by,
so as not to see it again, and rode on until the light shone in his
face.

Then he led his horse up a little ravine and hitched it among the snowy
holly and rhododendrons, and slipped toward the light. There was a dog
somewhere, of course; and like a thief he climbed over the low
rail-fence and stole through the tall snow-wet grass until he leaned
against an apple-tree with the sill of the window two feet above the
level of his eyes.

Reaching above him, he caught a stout limb and dragged himself up to a
crotch of the tree. A mass of snow slipped softly to the earth. The
branch creaked above the light wind; around the corner of the house a
dog growled and he sat still.

He had waited three long years and he had ridden two hard nights and
lain out two cold days in the woods for this.

And presently he reached out very carefully, and noiselessly broke leaf
and branch and twig until a passage was cleared for his eye and for the
point of the pistol that was gripped in his right hand.

A woman was just disappearing through the kitchen door, and he peered
cautiously and saw nothing but darting shadows. From one corner a shadow
loomed suddenly out in human shape. Buck saw the shadowed gesture of an
arm, and he cocked his pistol. That shadow was his man, and in a moment
he would be in a chair in the chimney corner to smoke his pipe,
maybe--his las