"You see, I was always making it end up in my mind that I should kill you. There didn't seem to be any other natural end to it. I had to kill you to square it. And that's why I was afraid. It was always one way in my thoughts. I never could--never can plan out any other way to end it; and murder is an awful thing, sir." Barrett, who had been straightening, crouched farther back on his haunches and lost his important air. "In my thoughts I always gave you half an hour to think it over, and stayed looking at you, and then killed you." There was a sudden convulsion of Lane's features, a smoulder in his eyes, that thrilled Barrett as though some one had whispered in his ear--"Lunatic." The warden's groping hands had clutched the heavy lineman's climbers dangling from his belt, and were now set about them so tightly that muscles were ridged on the bony surface. Barrett became gray with fear. But Lane's ferocity disappeared as suddenly as it had flared. "It all goes to show that in this world most men don't do what they think they'll do, when it comes to a big matter. I don't want to kill you, now that I have you where I want you." He looked down on the frightened man with a sort of pitying scorn. "It would be like batting a sheep to death. I don't want even to talk about your taking her away. It--it chokes in my throat! She's dead--and I guess she wanted to go away with you that time or she wouldn't have gone. That's just the way it seems to me now! And that's why I don't want to talk about it. It seems funny to feel that way, after all the thinking I've done about what I would do to you." "The idea is, you're taking the sensible, business man's view of it," stammered Barrett. "I was young then, and up here in the woods, and--oh, as you say, it is better not to talk it over. We all make mistakes." He was pulling his wallet out of his corduroy coat. He evidently felt that the sight of money would prolong this "sensible, business man's view" of the situation. He did not want to take any more chances that the other and vengeful view would return, which had shown its flame in Lane's contorted face. "Now, I've got here--" "To hell with your dirty money!" shrieked the warden, in a frenzy that was a veritable explosion out of his calmness. He kicked the wallet from the hands of the amazed timber baron. And when Barrett tried to stammer something, Lane leaned down and yelled, cracking his fists in the other's shrinking face: