But Hicks had caught sight of Clayton. For a moment he stood still, glaring at him. Then, with a furious effort, he wrenched himself from the men who held him, and thrust his hand into his pocket, backing against the wall. The crowd fell away from him as a weapon was drawn and levelled with unsteady hand at Clayton. Raines sprang forward; Clayton felt his arm clutched, and a figure darted past him. The flash came, and when Raines wrenched the weapon from the mountaineer's grasp the latter was standing rigid, with horror-stricken eyes fixed upon the smoke, in which Easter's white face showed like an apparition. As the smoke drifted aside, the girl was seen with both hands at her breast. Then, while a silent terror held every one, she turned, and, with outstretched hands, tottered toward Clayton; and as he caught her in his arms, a low moan broke from her lips. Some one hurried away for a physician, but the death-watch was over before he came. For a long time the wounded girl lay apparently unconscious, her face white and quiet. Only when a wood-thrush called from the woods close by were her lids half raised, and as Clayton pushed the shutter open above her and lifted her gently, she opened her eyes with a grateful look and turned her face eagerly to the cool air. The dawn was breaking. The east was already aflame with bars of rosy light, gradually widening. Above them a single star was poised, and in the valley below great white mists were stirring from sleep. For a moment she seemed to be listlessly watching the white, shapeless things, trembling as with life, and creeping silently into wood and up glen; and then her lashes drooped wearily together. The door opened as Clayton let her sink upon the bed, breathing as if asleep, and he turned, expecting the physician. Raines, too, rose eagerly, stopped suddenly, and shrank back with a shudder of repulsion as the figure of the wretched father crept, half crouching, within. Sherd! The girl's tone was full of gentle reproach, and so soft that it reached only Clayton's ears. Sherd! This time his name was uttered with an appeal ever so gentle. Pore dad! Pore dad! " she whispered. Her clasp tightened suddenly on Clayton's hand, and her eyes were held to his, even while the light in them was going out. A week later two men left the cabin at dusk. Half-way down the slope they came to one of the unspeakably mournful little burying-grounds wherein the mountain people rest after their narrow lives. It was unhedged, uncared for, and a few crumbling boards for headstones told the living generation where the dead were at rest. For a moment they paused to look at a spot under a great beech where the earth had been lately disturbed.