At length, silent, they moved away. “Had I--should I go to him” asked David hoarsely, nodding toward his father. “Nay, nay, lad,” the Master replied. “Yon's not a matter for a mon's friends.” So they marched out of the Devil's Bowl, and left those two alone together. * * * * * A little later, as they trampled along, James Moore heard little pattering, staggering footsteps behind. He stopped, and the other two went on. “Man,” a voice whispered, and a face, white and pitiful, like a mother's pleading for her child, looked into his--“Man, ye'll no tell them a' I'd no like 'em to ken 'twas ma Wullie. Think an 't had bin yer ain dog.” “You may trust me!” the other answered thickly. The little man stretched out a palsied hand. “Gie us yer hand on't. And G-God bless ye, James Moore!” So these two shook hands in the moonlight, with none to witness it but the God who made them. And that is why the mystery of the Black Killer is yet unsolved in the Daleland. Many have surmised; besides those three only one other knows--knows now which of those two he saw upon a summer night was the guilty, which the innocent. And Postie Jim tells no man. Chapter XXX. THE TAILLESS TYKE AT BAY ON the following morning there was a sheep-auction at the Dalesman's Daughter. Early as many of the farmers arrived, there was one earlier. Tupper, the first man to enter the sand-floored parlor, found M'Adam before him. He was sitting a little forward in his chair; his thin hands rested on his knees; and on his face was a gentle, dreamy expression such as no man had ever seen there before. All the harsh wrinkles seemed to have fled in the night; and the sour face, stamped deep with the bitterness of life, was softened now, as if at length at peace. “When I coom doon this mornin',” said Teddy Bolstock in a whisper, “I found 'im sittin' just so. And he's nor moved nor spoke since.” “Where's th' Terror, then?” asked Tupper, awed somehow into like hushed tones. “In t' paddock at back,” Teddy answered, “marchin' hoop and doon, hoop and doon, for a' the world like a sentry-soger. And so he was when I looked oot o' window when I wake.” Then Londesley entered, and after him, Ned Hoppin, Rob Saunderson, Jim Mason, and others, each with his dog. And each man, as he came in and saw the little lone figure for once without its huge attendant genius, put the same question; while the dogs sniffed about the little man, as though suspecting treachery. And all the time M'Adam sat as though he neither heard nor saw, lost in some sweet, sad dream; so quite, so silent, that more than one thought he slept. After the first glance, however, the farmers paid him little heed, clustering round the publican at the farther end of the room to hear the latest story of Owd Bob.