after I leave the wagon train. I promised Pearson that I would take care of the child and put her safe in her aunt’s hands, and so I will—but, Oh, dear! I never expected to be obliged to do it.”

A hollow groan breaks upon her speech; the man upon the pallet is writhing as if in intensest agony. The woman makes a signal of dismissal, and drops the canvas curtain.

Walter Parks hesitates a moment, and then, as a second groan greets his ear, turns and strides away.

[18]

III.

The clouds hang overhead like a murky canopy. The wind is sighing itself to sleep. The rain has ceased, but large drops drip dismally from the great branches that lately sheltered Arthur Pearson’s death-bed.

Beside the rocks, three men are standing. It is three o’clock in the morning. Two of the three men bend down to examine something which the third, lighted by a lantern, has just taken from the wet ground at his feet.

It is a small thing to excite so much earnest scrutiny; only the half burned fragment of a lucifer match.

“Boys,” says Walter Parks, solemnly, swinging the lantern upon his arm and carefully wrapping the bit of match in a paper as he speaks, “poor Pearson was never killed by lightning. That sear upon his forehead was made by the simple application of a burning match. I’ve seen men killed by lightning.”

“But you said—”

“No matter what I said then, Joe; what I now say to you and Menard is the truth. You have promised to keep what I am about to tell you a secret, and to act according to my advice. Menard, Blakesly, Arthur Pearson has been foully murdered!”

“No!”

“Parks, you are mad!”

“You will believe the evidence of your own senses, boys. I am going to prove what I assert.”

“But who? how?—”

“Who?—ah, that’s the question! There are ten men of us; if the guilty party belongs to our train, we will[19] ferret him out if possible. If we were to gather all our party here, and show them how poor Pearson met his death, the assassin, if he is among us, would be warned, and perhaps escape.”

[19]

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