Pole stared at the ground for a long time; the veins of his neck and brow stood out as if from physical torture. He looked about him suddenly in a spasm of effort to think of some escape from his impending doom. There was Nelson Floyd. He would grant him any request. He could draw upon the young merchant for unlimited funds, and before the fated hour arrived he could be far away from the country and his wife and children. A great lump rose inside of him and tore itself outward through his throat. No, he couldn't leave them; it was further out of his power now than ever. Besides, had he not brought all this on himself? Was not the threatened punishment equally as just in his case as it had been in the case of others among his neighbors? He rose to his feet. There was nothing left for him to do but to go home, and--yes, meet the White Caps at the appointed place and take what was coming to him bravely. Shoot? Defend his rights? Kill the men who were taking the part of those he himself had sworn to love and stand by?--no! The punishment?--yes; but after that, to his confused brain, all was a painful blank. His wife and children had always comforted him in trouble, but could they do so now? Would not the sight of their anxious faces only add to his load of remorse? As he went along the road towards his home, his rugged breast rose and expanded under his ragged shirt and then slowly fell. He was a dead man alive--a breathing, rotting horror in his own sight. A shudder went over him; he heard the commanding voice of the leader of the outlaws; he felt the lash and braced himself for another blow, which he hoped would cut deep enough to pierce the festering agony within him. Then his lower lip began to quiver, and tears came into his great, glaring eyes. He was beginning to pity himself, for, when all had been said and done, could he really have acted differently? Had God actually given him the moral and physical strength to avoid the pits into which he had stumbled with the helplessness of a little child? The road led him into the depths of a wood where the boughs of mighty trees arched overhead and obscured the sunlit sky. He envied a squirrel bounding unhindered to its nest. Nature seemed to hold out her vast, soothing arms to him. He wanted to sink into them and sob out his pent-up agony. In the deepest part of the wood, where rugged cliffs bordered the road, he came to the spring mentioned in the letter. Here he paused and looked about him. On this spot the most awful experience of his rugged life would be enacted.