ower, by simply altering the position of his hands in his
trousers' pockets, managed to suggest that he knew perfectly the meaning
of it, had always known it; but that being now, so to speak, in the
hands of Fate, he was callous to it. This much, at least, the elder
brother read in his attitude. But anxiety at that moment was the
controlling impulse of the Right Bower, as a certain superstitious
remorse was the instinct of the two others, and without heeding the
cynic, the three started at a rapid pace for the cabin.

They reached it silently, as the moon, now riding high in the heavens,
seemed to touch it with the tender grace and hushed repose of a tomb.
It was with something of this feeling that the Right Bower softly pushed
open the door; it was with something of this dread that the two others
lingered on the threshold, until the Right Bower, after vainly trying
to stir the dead embers on the hearth into life with his foot, struck a
match and lit their solitary candle. Its flickering light revealed the
familiar interior unchanged in aught but one thing. The bunk that
the Old Man had occupied was stripped of its blankets; the few cheap
ornaments and photographs were gone; the rude poverty of the bare boards
and scant pallet looked up at them unrelieved by the bright face and
gracious youth that had once made them tolerable. In the grim irony
of that exposure, their own penury was doubly conscious. The little
knapsack, the teacup and coffee-pot that had hung near his bed, were
gone also. The most indignant protest, the most pathetic of the letters
he had composed and rejected, whose torn fragments still littered the
floor, could never have spoken with the eloquence of this empty space!
The men exchanged no words: the solitude of the cabin, instead of
drawing them together, seemed to isolate each one in selfish distrust of
the others. Even the unthinking garrulity of Union Mills and the Judge
was checked. A moment later, when the Left Bower entered the cabin, his
presence was scarcely noticed.

The silence was broken by a joyous exclamation from the Judge. He had
discovered the Old Man's rifle in the corner, where it had been at first
overlooked. "He ain't gone yet, gentlemen--for yer's his rifle," he
broke in, with a feverish return of volubility, and a high excited
falsetto. "He wouldn't have left this behind. No! I knowed it from the
first. He's just outside a bit, foraging for wood and water. No, sir!
Coming along