er if old Kate knew
about him. Her charm worked well anyway--didn't it? My nose was all
right in the morning. Sorry that I can't meet you Saturday. Mother
and I are packing up to go away for the summer. Don't forget me. I
shall be thinking every day of those lovely things you said to me.
I don't know what they will try to do with me, and I don't care. I
really think as you do, Bart, that God has married us to each
other.

"Yours forever,
SALLY DUNKELBERG."

How often I read those words--so like all the careless words of the
young!

CHAPTER XIV

THE BOLT FALLS

Three times that winter I had seen Benjamin Grimshaw followed by the
Silent Woman clothed in rags and pointing with her finger. Mr. Hacket
said that she probably watched for him out of her little window above
the blacksmith shop that overlooked the south road. When he came to town
she followed. I always greeted the woman when I passed her, but when she
was on the trail of the money-lender she seemed unaware of my presence,
so intent was she on the strange task she had set herself. If he were
not in sight she smiled when passing me, but neither spoke nor nodded.

Grimshaw had gone about his business as usual when I saw him last, but I
had noted a look of the worried rat in his face. He had seemed to be
under extreme irritation. He scolded every man who spoke to him. The
notion came to me that her finger was getting down to the quick.

The trial of Amos came on. He had had "blood on his feet," as they used
to say, all the way from Lickitysplit to Lewis County in his flight,
having attacked and slightly wounded two men with a bowie knife who had
tried to detain him at Rainy Lake. He had also shot at an officer in the
vicinity of Lowville, where his arrest was effected. He had been
identified by all these men, and so his character as a desperate man had
been established. This in connection with the scar on his face and the
tracks, which the boots of Amos fitted, and the broken gun stock
convinced the jury of his guilt.

The most interesting bit of testimony which came out at the trial was
this passage from a yellow paper-covered tale which had been discovered
hidden in the haymow of the Grimshaw barn:

"Lightfoot waited in the bushes with his trusty rifle in hand. When
the two unsuspecting travelers reached a point nearly opposite him
he raised his rifle and glanced over its shining