inner hour I met Slatterly on the lower floor, and we
had a moment's talk together. "You've been in on most everything that's
happened around here," he said. "You might as well be with us to-night.
We're going to watch the lagoon."

The truth was I had made other plans for this evening--plans that
included Edith Nealman--so I made no immediate answer. The official
noticed my hesitancy, and of course misunderstood.

"Speak right up, if you don't want to do it," he said, not unkindly. The
sheriff was a man of human sympathies, after all. "I wouldn't hold it
against any man living if he didn't want to sit out there in the dark
watching--after what's happened the last three nights. I don't know that
I'd do it myself if it wasn't in line of duty."

"I don't think I'd be afraid," I told him.

"It isn't a question of being afraid. It's simply a matter of human
make-up. To tell the truth, I'm afraid myself--and I'm not ashamed of
it. More than once I've had to conquer fear in my work. A man who ain't
afraid, one time or another, hasn't any imagination. Some men are cold
as ice, I've had deputies that were--and they wouldn't mind this a bit.
I know, Killdare, that you'd come in a pinch. Any man here, I think--any
white man--would be down there with me to-night if something vital--some
one's life or something--depended on it. But I don't want to take any
one that it will be hard for, that--that is any one to whom it would be
a real ordeal. I'm picking my bunch with some care."

"Who is going?"

"Weldon, Nopp, you and myself--if you want to come. If not, don't mind
saying so."

"I want to come!" We smiled at each other, in the hall. After all, no
other decision could be made. The high plans I had made for an evening
with Edith would have to be given over. In the first place the night
might solve the mystery into which I had been drawn. In the second it
was the kind of offer that most men, over the earth, find it impossible
to refuse. Human beings, as a whole, are not particularly brave. They
are still too close to the caves and the witch-doctors of the young
world. They are inordinately, incredibly shy, also, and like little
children, sometimes, in their dreads and superstitions. Yet through some
blessing they have a high-born capacity to conquer the fear that
emburdens them.

No white man in the manor house would have refused Slatterly's offer.
Mostly, when men see that they are up against a certain hard deal, some
prop