the other that he had snatched. Quicker
to fire, too, for the weapon in Jeffrey's hand was discharged in his
latest impulse of action after he fell to the floor, the blood gushing
from a wound that crimsoned all the delicate whiteness of his
shirt-front and bedabbled his snowy hair and beard.

This was the moment, the signal, fatal, final moment, that the levee
contractor had come to meet, that placed the period to his own
existence. He lived no longer, Hoxer felt. He did not recognize as his
own a single action hereafter, a single mental impulse. It was something
else, standing here in the red gloaming--some foreign entity, cogently
reasoning, swiftly acting. Self-defense--was it? And who would believe
that? Had he found justice so alert to redress his wrongs, even in a
little matter, that he must needs risk his neck upon it? This Thing that
was not himself--no, never more!--had the theory of alibi in his mind as
he stripped off his low-cut shoes and socks, thrusting them into his
pockets, leaping from the door, and flying among the dusky shadows down
the glooming grove, and through the gate.

Dusk here, too, on the lonely county road, the vague open expanse of
the ploughed fields glimmering to the instarred sky of a still, chill
night of early February. He did not even wonder that there should be no
hue and cry on his tracks--the Thing was logical! Jeffrey had doubtless
had his pistols carried down from the mansion to him in his den in the
billiard-room, for the avowed purpose of putting the weapons in order.
If the shots were heard at all at the dwelling, the sound was reasonably
ascribed to the supposed testing of the weapons. Hoxer was conscious
that a sentiment of gratulation, of sly triumph, pervaded his mental
processes as he sped along barefoot, like some tramp or outcast, or
other creature of a low station. He had laid his plans well in this
curious, involuntary cerebration. Those big, bare footprints were ample
disguise for a well-clad, well-groomed, well-shod middle-class man of a
skilful and lucrative employ. The next moment his heart sank like lead.
He was followed! He heard the pursuit in the dark! Swift, unerring,
leaping along the dusty road, leaving its own footprints as a testimony
against him. For he had recognized its nature at last! It was his own
dog--a little, worthless cur, that had a hide like a doormat and a heart
as big as the United States--a waif, a stray, that had attached himself
to the