He stood up and cursed the Providence that had robbed him of his right of action. He turned Joe's body over with his foot. The snoring, that had grown fainter and fainter, ceased altogether; a dull kind of grunt was Joe's only acknowledgment of the attention. "You hog! Why aren't you fit to stand on your legs and fight me?" cried Griff. He halted awhile, his hands going nervously to and fro above the body. "No, I can't do it," he muttered dully, and went to that other patch of black. In a trice his sympathies were awake, though they had seemed stone dead a moment ago. He knelt beside the quivering beast, and his tears dropped hot on the sweating coat. "They needn't have mixed _you_ up with our quarrels," he said softly. He felt the broken limbs, and saw that there was only one thing to be done. But how to do it? He looked at the crowbar lying in the snow at his feet; that was useless. Then he bethought him of the cottage, and ran hot-foot to see if Strangeways had left a gun about. He crept through the broken panels again, felt round the room till his hands fell on a tinder-box, and lit a rushlight that stood on the chimney-piece. A cumbersome muzzle-loader lay in one corner--the same corner in which Mother Strangeways' bed had stood that night when she called him in out of the storm. He took up the gun, found it loaded and primed, and went back to the highroad. "There will be a row soon, old lady. I'd better fasten you up," he said quietly, as he hitched Lassie's reins to the gate-post. He put the gun-muzzle close to the ear of the horse lying on the ground, and pulled the trigger. "God forgive me!" he muttered. "I had it in mind to kill a man just now--but a horse----" He went to the two men lying a little further down the hill. Laverack's heart made no response to the hand that was laid on it, and the snow lay unmelted on Joe's set lips. "Come, Lassie; it's home now," said Griff, as he untethered the mare. CHAPTER XXX. BY WAY OF WYNYATES. By the time that Lassie had been put up in the stable, groomed, and fed, the snow had ceased, though the frost bit harder than ever. Griff fastened the stable-door, and moved irresolutely towards the house. Then he remembered what was inside, on the seat in the parlour where he had laid it. The bairn, indeed, was lying on a bed upstairs, washed and laid out by the women-folk; but to Griff's fancy it was still in the chair, and he shrank from the thought of entering.