th chattered. I had a
feeling that I was going to be attacked--I didn't know by what--maybe
by a wild beast--but something was going to rush in through that old
blanket hanging in the door and pounce on me."

The sweat was standing on Allan's face, and he sank back weakly into
the pillows. Beulah placed a glass to his lips, and the doctor told
him to take his time with his story. The jurors stood about the bed
in silence, looking from one to the other with expressions that
suggested they were almost in the presence of the supernatural. If
the black bag with the money had slowly risen out of the floor
someone would have quietly set it in a corner until Allan was ready
to continue his evidence.

"As the minutes went by," Allan continued, after an interval, "that
terrible dread grew upon me, and my sense of danger changed from fear
to certainty. Something was going to attack me through that door! I
raised my gun and took careful aim. I saw the blanket swing a little;
then I saw the fingers of a man's hand. Then I fired.

"Perhaps I am a murderer," he continued, simply, "but before God I
know no more why I fired that shot than you do."

There were deep breathing and shuffling of feet as Allan completed
this part of his statement, but only the coroner found his voice.
"Most remarkable evidence," he ejaculated. "Most extraordinary
evidence. I have never heard anything so obviously sincere and at the
same time so altogether unexplainable."

"Perhaps it's not so unexplainable," said a quiet voice; and Mary
Harris made her way through the circle of men to the side of the bed.
She sat down on the coverlet and took the boy's hand in hers. It
mattered not how many were looking on; he was her little boy again.

"_You_ will understand, Doctor, and some of you men are parents," she
began. "Allan will be twenty-five years old this coming winter. A
little less than twenty-five years ago my husband was obliged to
leave me alone for a considerable period in our little sod shanty on
the homestead where we had located down in Manitoba. There were no
near neighbours, as we count distance in well-settled districts, and
I was altogether alone, I stood it all right for the first day or
two, but my nerves were not what they should have been, and gradually
a strange, unreasoning fear came upon me. I suppose it was the
immensity of the prairies, the terrible loneliness of it all, and my
own state of health, but the dread grew from day to da