falling away from the great sphere of pearl, gemming the night with
an incomparable splendor. It had grown almost as light as day, and the
sheriff ordered the pace quickened. Along a definite cattle-trail they
went at first, but presently they were following through bosky recesses
a deer-path, winding sinuously at will on the way to water. The thinning
foliage let in the fair, ethereal light, and all the sylvan aisles
stood in sheeny silver illumination. The drops of moisture glittered
jewel-wise on the dark boughs of fir and pine, and one could even
discriminate the red glow of sour-wood and the golden flare of hickory,
so well were the chromatic harmonies asserted in this refined and
refulgent glamour.

"Barton Smith!" called the sheriff, suddenly from the rear of the party.
There was no answer, and Seymour felt his prophetic blood run cold.
His conscience began to stir. Had he, indeed, no foundation for his
suspicion?

"Smith! _Smith_" cried the irascible officer. "Hey, there! Is the man
deaf!"

"Not deef, edzac'ly," Meddlesome's voice sounded reproachfully; "jes a
leetle hard o' hear in'." She had administered a warning nudge.

"Hey? What ye want?" said the "Wolf's Head," suddenly checking his
horse.

"Have you any idea of where you are going, or how far?" demanded the
officer, sternly.

"Just acrost the gorge," the guide answered easily.

"I heard he had been glimpsed in a hollow tree. That word was telephoned
from the cross-roads to town. It was the tree the skeleton was in."

"That tree? It's away back yander," observed one of the posse, reluctant
and disaffected.

"Oh, he has quit that tree; he is bound for up the gorge now," said the
guide.

"Well, I suppose you know, from what I was told," said the sheriff,
discontentedly; "but this is a long ja'nt. Ride up! Ride up!"

Onward they fared through the perfumed woods. The wild asters were
blooming, and sweet and subtile distillations of the autumnal growths
were diffused on the air. The deer are but ill at road-making,--such
tangled coverts, such clifty ledges, such wild leaps; for now the path
threaded the jagged verge of precipices. The valley, a black abyss above
which massive, purplish mountains loomed against a sky of pearly tints,
was visibly narrowing. They all knew that presently it would become a
mere gorge, a vast indentation in the mountain-side. The weird vistas
across the gorge were visible how, craggy steeps, and deep woods
filled with