e young men were loud in their expressions of
sympathy. The older heads shook dubiously.

"There would be trouble."

"Donald had a determined look. Duquette made a mistake in taking the
farm. The cowboys in the North-West held life rather cheap."

So the old people said.

CHAPTER XV. A SHOT IN THE DARKNESS.

The Duquettes took possession of the farm.

They were quiet, inoffensive people.

Donald had been seen moving about between Marsden and Lake Megantic
wearing an air of disquietude.

Something was impending. In a vague way the people felt that something
sinister was going to happen.

'Twas about midnight in the village of Marsden. Darkness enveloped it
as a mourning garment. Painful effort, and strife, and sorrow were all
forgotten in that deep sleep which, as the good Book says, is peculiarly
sweet to the laboring man.

The Duquettes had not yet retired to rest. Mrs. Duquette had been kept
up by an ailing child. She was sitting with her little one on her knee.

Suddenly there was a detonation and a crash of glass. A whizzing bullet
lodged in the face of the clock above Mrs. Duquette's head. Who fired
the shot? And what was the motive? Was it intended that the bullet
should kill, or only alarm?

Was it intended that the Duquettes should recognize the desirability of
vacating the farm?

Who fired the shot?

Nothing was said openly about it; but the old people shook their heads,
and hinted that cowboys, with pistols ostentatiously stuck in their
belts, were not the most desirable residents of a quiet village like
Marsden.

CHAPTER XVI. "BURNT A HOLE IN THE NIGHT."

That shot in the darkness furnished a theme for endless gossip amongst
the villagers. There was not much work done the next day. When the
exercise of the faculties is limited to considerations associated with
the rare occurrence of a wedding or a death, intellectual activity is
not great. Abstract reasoning is unknown; but a new objective fact
connected with the environment is seized upon with great avidity. That
shot was felt to be ominous. Was it the prologue to the tragedy? There
was to be something more than that shot.

What was it?

Would anything else happen, and when would it happen?

The villagers were not kept long in suspense.

A few nights afterwards there was a lurid glare in the sky.

It was red, and sinister, and quivering.

What could it mean?

Was it a celestial portent which thus wrote itself upon t