“That is because you are a city man,” explained the District Attorney. “You don’t know the kind of murderers we raise here in the country. The chances are that your city assassin would be tortured by remorse, if he escaped discovery, and that he committed the deed in a moment of passion. But the rural murderer (I am speaking of native Americans, now) plans the thing in cold blood, and goes at it systematically, with nerves like steel. He generally even mutilates the body, or does some other horrible thing, which it makes everybody’s blood boil to think of. And so long as he isn’t found out, he never dreams of remorse. He has no more moral perspective than a woodchuck. But when detection does come, it knocks him all in a heap. He blubbers, and tries to lay it on somebody else, and altogether acts like a cur--just as this fellow ’s doing now, for instance.” A hubbub of shrieks and sobs rose from the kitchen as he finished this sentence, and they with one accord moved toward the door. The Sheriff, with an eye to his promise to the two men in the kitchen, had led the livid and slinking wretch out to the centre of the room, where the dim candles had now been lighted, and, forcing him to hold up his hands so that the manacles might be fully visible, said to Seth: “Here yeh air! I said I’d shaow him to yeh! Here is the whelp thet did th’ mischief. Look at him!” There was a second of dead silence, as the several listeners took in the significance of his words, and of the spectacle. The silence was broken by an inarticulate, indescribable cry from Aunt Sabrina. Then came with startling swiftness a confusion of moving bodies, of screams, and the rattling of the handcuffs’ chain, which no one could follow. When the intervention of the Sheriff and Beekman had restored quiet, it was discovered that the old lady, with an agility of which none could have supposed her capable, had snatched a potato knife from the table, and made a savage attempt to wreak the family’s vengeance upon Milton. She had not succeeded in inflicting any injury, save a slight cut on one of his pinioned hands, and Seth now with some difficulty persuaded her to leave the room. It fell to Alvira’s lot to bind up the bleeding hand--for Melissa, undertaking the task, was too nervous and trembling to perform it. A little dialogue, in hushed whispers, which only imperfectly reached even the sentinel Sheriff, ensued: “Sao this is what yeh’ve come tew!” “It’s all a lie!” “Oh, don’t tell _me!_ Ef you’d be’n contented with yer lot in life, ’n’ hadn’t tried to swell yerself up like a toad in a puddle, this wouldn’t a happen’d. But nao, yeh poor fewl, yeh must set yerself up to _be_ somebody! ’N’ naow where air yeh?” Words with which to answer rose to Milton’s bloodless lips, but he could not give them utterance. He could not even look at her, but in a dazed way stared at the hand, which he held so that she could wind the bandage in spite of the gyves.