he Cross Roads where the coach
came past. It was three miles away, yet he could get there in time if he
hastened. It was a wise and practical conclusion of his evening's work,
a lame and impotent conclusion to his evening's indignation. No matter.
They would perhaps at first think he had come to weakly follow them,
perhaps they would at first doubt his story. No matter. He bit his lips
to keep down the foolish rising tears, but still went blindly forward.

He saw not the beautiful night, cradled in the dark hills, swathed in
luminous mists, and hushed in the awe of its own loveliness! Here and
there the moon had laid her calm face on lake and overflow, and gone
to sleep embracing them, until the whole plain seemed to be lifted
into infinite quiet. Walking on as in a dream, the black, impenetrable
barriers of skirting thickets opened and gave way to vague distances
that it appeared impossible to reach, dim vistas that seemed
unapproachable. Gradually he seemed himself to become a part of the
mysterious night. He was becoming as pulseless, as calm, as passionless.

What was that? A shot in the direction of the cabin! yet so faint, so
echoless, so ineffective in the vast silence, that he would have thought
it his fancy but for the strange instinctive jar upon his sensitive
nerves. Was it an accident, or was it an intentional signal to him? He
stopped; it was not repeated, the silence reasserted itself, but this
time with an ominous death-like suggestion. A sudden and terrible
thought crossed his mind. He cast aside his pack and all encumbering
weight, took a deep breath, lowered his head and darted like a deer in
the direction of the challenge.

CHAPTER II

The exodus of the seceding partners of the Lone Star claim had been
scarcely an imposing one. For the first five minutes after quitting the
cabin, the procession was straggling and vagabond. Unwonted exertion had
exaggerated the lameness of some, and feebleness of moral purpose had
predisposed the others to obtrusive musical exhibition. Union Mills
limped and whistled with affected abstraction; the Judge whistled and
limped with affected earnestness. The Right Bower led the way with some
show of definite design; the Left Bower followed with his hands in
his pockets. The two feebler natures, drawn together in unconscious
sympathy, looked vaguely at each other for support.

"You see," said the Judge, suddenly, as if triumphantly concluding
an argument, "there