his gun and fired. Next moment his
comrade lay dead upon the ground--shot through the heart!

Horror-struck at what he had done, the murderer could scarcely believe
his eyes, and he stood up glaring at the corpse as if he had been frozen
to death in that position. After standing a long time, he sat down and
tried to think of his act and the probable consequences.

Self-defence was the first idea that was suggested clearly to him; and
he clung to it as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw. "Was it
not clear," he thought, "that Perrin intended to murder me? If not, why
so quick to grip his gun? If I had waited it would have been me, not
Perrin, that would be lying there now!"

His memory reminded him faithfully, however, that when he first thought
of taking up his gun, Conscience had sternly said,--"Don't." Why should
Conscience have spoken thus, or at all, if his motive had been innocent?

There are two ways in which a wicked man gets rid of conscientious
troubles--at least for a time. One way is by stout-hearted defiance of
God, and ignoring of Conscience altogether. The other is by sophistical
reasoning, and a more or less successful effort to throw dust in his own
eyes.

Duncan McKay took the latter method. It is an easy enough method--
especially with the illogical--but it works indifferently, and it does
not last long.

Conscience may be seared; may be ignored; may be trampled on, but it
cannot be killed; it cannot even be weakened and is ever ready at the
most unseasonable and unexpected times to start up, vigorous and
faithful to the very end, with its emphatic "Don't!" and "No!"

Dragging the body out of the camp, McKay returned to take his supper and
reason the matter out with himself.

"I could not help myself," he thought; "when I took up my gun I did not
intend to kill the man."

Conscience again reminded him of its "Don't!"

"And would not every man in Rud Ruver justify me for firing first in
self-defence?"

Conscience again said "No!"

Here the hunter uttered a savage oath, to which Conscience made no
reply, for Conscience never speaks back or engages in disputation.

We need not attempt further to analyse the workings of sophistry in the
brain of a murderer. Suffice it to say that when the man had finished
his supper he had completely, though not satisfactorily, justified
himself in his own eyes. There was, he felt, a disagreeable
undercurrent of uneasiness; but this might