rass which swished under his feet.
For more than ten minutes he searched in vain; and then, once more, he
found himself beside the man he had knocked out.

He was thoroughly alarmed now. Eve was still anxiously awaiting news
of her brother. The thing was quite inexplicable. He could never have
attempted to walk home. Why should he? Finally he decided that he
must have strolled into the bush and sat down, and----

His glance fell upon the man lying at his feet. How still he lay.
How---- Hello, what was this? He had left him lying on his side. Now
his pale face was turned directly up at the sky. And--he dropped on
his knees at his side--his bandage had been removed. He glanced about.
There it was, a yard away in the grass. In wondering astonishment his
eyes came back to the ghastly face of the unconscious man. Somehow it
looked different, yet----

A glance at his body drew an exclamation of horror from his lips. For
a moment every drop of blood seemed to recede from his brain, leaving
him cold. A clammy moisture broke out upon his forehead at what he
beheld. The man's clothing had been torn open leaving his chest bare,
and he now beheld his own knife plunged to the hilt in the white
flesh. Will Henderson was dead--stabbed through the heart by----

He sprang to his feet with a cry of horror, and his eyes flashed right
and left as though in search of the murderer. Who had done this thing?
Who----? As though in answer to his thought, Elia's voice reached him
from out of the bushes.

"He's sure dead. I hate him."

Then followed a rustling of the brushwood, as though the boy had taken
himself off.

Jim made no attempt to follow him. He remained staring into the black
woods whence that voice had proceeded. He was petrified with the
horror of the boy's deed.

He stood for some minutes thus. Then thought became active once
more. And curiously enough it was cool, calm, and debating. The
possibilities that had so suddenly opened up were tremendous.
Tremendous and--hideous. Yet they stirred him far less than might
have been expected. Black, foul murder had been committed, and in
a way that threw the entire blame on himself.

He saw it all in a flash. It needed but the smallest intelligence to
do so. There was no mind in Barnriff but would inevitably fix on his
guilt--even his friend Peter. How could it be otherwise? There was his
knife. There were his handkerchiefs. The white one had his name on it.
The knife had his ini