“Hello! hello!” Again the call rang jarringly through the empty hall below and up the stairway. Carson sat erect, put his feet on the floor, and stood out in the centre of the room. He told himself that it was an officer of the law in pursuit of him. How silly to have imagined that such a thing could remain hidden! And his mother! Yes, it would kill her! Poor, poor, gentle, frail woman! He had tried to obviate the blow, resorting to deception, to actual flight; he had submerged himself in the mire of criminal secrecy, according to the letter of the law, that he might shield her, and for what purpose? Yes, the blow would kill her. Dr. Stone had plainly said so. He went to the window and looked out. At the gate below he saw a man on a horse, and heard him muttering impatiently. “Hello in Thar!” The cry was accompanied by an oath. “Are you-uns plumb deaf? What do you keep a tavern fur, anyhow?” There was a sound in the room below of some one getting out of bed, and then a drowsy voice cried: “Who's there?” It was the landlord. “Me, Jim Purvines. Let me in, Tom. I've got to have a bed an' a stall fer my nag. I'm completely fagged out.” “All right, all right. I'll join you in a minute. Where in the thunder have you been, Jim?” “To the inquest. They made me serve. Samson called a jury right off so they could move the body home. The dead man's mammy didn't want it to lie thar all night.” “Good Lord! Jury? Dead man? Why, what's happened, Jim?” “Oh, come off! You don't mean you hain't heard the news?” The rider had dismounted and was leading his horse through the gate to the steps on which the landlord now stood. “Why, Tom, Dan Willis has gone to his last accountin'. The Webb children, out pickin' huckleberries, come across his remains on the Treadwell road a mile t'other side o' Wilks's store. At first it was thought he'd met his death by bein' throwed from his colt, fer somebody seed it loose with saddle an' bridle on, but when we examined the body we found a bullet-hole over the heart.” “Good Lord! Who done it, Jim?” Carson's heart was in his mouth; his breath was held; there was a pause which seemed without end. “Done it hisself, Tom. The jury had no difficulty comin' to that decision from ample evidence. He'd tuck his pocket-knife an' stuck up an envelope with his name on it agin a tree, an', half drunk, as we judged from his flask, he was shootin' at it over the head of a young colt that hain't been broke a month. Dan must have had the devil in 'im, an' was determined to train the animal to stand under fire, fer we seed whar the dirt was pawed up powerful all around. We calculated that the colt got to buckin' an' to keep from bein' throwed off Dan turned his gun the wrong way. Anyhow, he's no more.” “Yes, an' I reckon a body ought to respect the dead, good or bad,” said the landlord; “but there won't be a river of tears shed, Jim. That fellow was a living threat to law and order.”