train credulity, there was something that made her afraid when her
mother said:

"Ye hed better not be talkin' 'bout rifle range so brash, 'Genie,
nohows. They 'lowed ez Luke Todd an' Sam Peters kem hyar--'twar jes
night before las'--aimin' ter take the mare away 'thout no words an' no
lawin', 'kase they didn't want ter wait. Luke hed got a chance ter
view the mare, an' knowed ez she war hisn. An' Tobe war hid in the dark
beside the mare, an' fired at 'em, an' the rifle-ball tuk Sam right
through the beam o' his arm. I reckon, though, ez that warn't true, else
ye would hev knowed it."

She looked up anxiously over her spectacles at her daughter.

"I hearn Tobe shoot," faltered Eugenia. "I seen blood on the leaves."

"Laws-a-massy!" exclaimed the old woman, irritably. "I be fairly feared
ter bide hyar; 'twouldn't s'prise me none ef they kem hyar an' hauled
Tobe out an' lynched him an' sech, an' who knows who mought git hurt in
the scrimmage?"

They both fell silent as the ranger strode in. They would need a braver
heart than either bore to reveal to him the suspicions of horse-stealing
sown broadcast over the mountain. Eugenia felt that this in itself was
coercive evidence of his innocence. Who dared so much as say a word to
his face?

The weight of the secret asserted itself, however. As she went about
her accustomed tasks, all bereft of their wonted interest, vapid
and burdensome, she carried so woe-begone a face that it caught his
attention, and he demanded, angrily,

"What ails ye ter look so durned peaked?"

This did not abide long in his memory, however, and it cost her a pang
to see him so unconscious.

She went out upon the porch late that afternoon to judge of the weather.
Snow was falling again. The distant summits had disappeared. The
mountains near at hand loomed through the myriads of serried white
flakes. A crow flew across the Cove in its midst. It heavily thatched
the cabin, and tufts dislodged by the opening of the door fell down upon
her hair. Drifts lay about the porch. Each rail of the fence was
laden. The ground, the rocks, were deeply covered. She reflected with
satisfaction that the red splotch of blood on the dead leaves was no
longer visible. Then a sudden idea struck her that took her breath
away. She came in, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, with an excited
dubitation.

Her husband commented on the change. "Ye air a powerful cur'ous critter,
'Genie," he said: "a while ago ye lo