Albert returned, just as the hame straps were being buckled. “Everybody seems to be asleep in the house,” he said. “If they ask any questions in the morning, mind you know nothing whatever. That brother of mine is no friend. Be careful what you say to him. Let him walk to the depot in the morning. It’ll do him good. Oh yes, by the way, better let me have one of those revolvers of yours--you have ’em upstairs, haven’t you--give me the one that strikes fire every time.” Milton came down and out presently, saying that he just remembered having lent the weapon. “’Tother’s no good,” he added; “yeh don’t need no pistol anyway. Th’ moon’ll be up direc’ly.” Albert gathered up the lines, and drove out slowly toward the road. “Yeh better save th’ beasts till after yeh git over Tallman’s hill, ’n’ rest ’em there by th’ gulf!” Milton called after him, as a last injunction. The hired man stood at the stable door, and watched the buggy pass the darkened, silent house, turn out on the high-road, and disappear beneath the poplars. The moon was just coming up, beyond this line of trees, and it made the gloom of their shadow deeper. His eyes, from following the vehicle ranged back to the house, which reared itself black against the whitening sky. There was there no sound, nor any sign of life. He took a revolver out of his pocket, and examined it in the starlight, cocking it again and again to make sure that there had been no mistake. Satisfied with the inspection, he put it back in his side coat-pocket. He went upstairs, changed his hat, took a drink out of a flat brown bottle in his cupboard, and spent a minute or two looking at one of the tin-type portraits on the mantel-shelf. He held the picture to the light, and grinned as he gazed--then put it in his breast pocket, blew out the lamp, and felt his way softly down stairs. A few minutes later he came out from the stable, leading the swift black mare. She was saddled and bridled, and seemed to understand, as he led her over the grass, that he wanted no noise made. The man and beast, throwing long, grotesque shadows on the lawn, in the light of the low moon, stole past the house, and out upon the road. Milton here climbed into the saddle, and with an exultant little cluck, started in the direction his master had gone, still keeping the black mare on the grass. They, too, disappeared under the poplars.