She produced a mattock from a corner of the cabin and began, through the broken wall, to rake down mud and earth and cover the coins. For an hour and more she worked, the Corporal still keeping watch. Once or twice he growled at her to make less noise. He did not stand the suspense well, but after the first hour grew visibly uneasy. "I've a mind to give this over," he grumbled, and fell to unstrapping his knapsack. "Here!"--he tossed it to her--"pack it, full as you can. Half a loaf may turn out better than no bread." She laid the knapsack open on the floor and set to work, cramming it with dollars. "Talking of bread," he went on by-and-by, "that's going to be a question. My stomach's feeling at this moment like as if it had two rows of teeth inside." "Hist!" Mercedes rose, finger to lip. He turned again to the window-hole and peered out, gun in hand, his shoulder blocking the recess. A man's footsteps were coming up the path--coming cautiously. Their crunch upon the snow was just audible, and no more. Mercedes stole towards the window and crept close behind the Corporal's back; stood there, holding her breath. The man on the path halted for a moment, and came on again, still cautiously.... There was a jet of flame, a roar; and the Corporal, after the kick of his musket, strained himself forward on the window-ledge to see if his shot had told. "Settled him!" he announced, drawing back and turning to face her with a triumphant grin. But Mercedes confronted him with her father's fowling-piece in hand. She had slipped it off the window-ledge from under his elbow as he leaned forward. "Unbar the door!" she commanded. "Look here, no nonsense!" "Unbar the door!" She believed him to be a coward, and he was. "You just wait a bit, my lady!" he threatened, but drew the bolt, nevertheless; when he turned, the muzzle of the fowling-piece still covered him. She nodded toward the knapsack. "Pick up that, if you will.... Now turn your back--your back to me, if you please--and go." He hesitated, rebellious: but there was no help for it. "Go!" she repeated. And he went. Above the cabin the path ended almost at once in a _cul de sac_--a wall of frowning cliff. There was no way for him, whether he wished to descend or climb the mountain, but that which led him past the body of the man he had just murdered. He went past it tottering, fumbling with the straps of his knapsack: and Mercedes stood in the moonlit doorway and watched him out of sight. By-and-by she seated herself before the threshold, and, laying the gun across her knees, prepared herself to wait for the dawn. The dead man lay huddled on his side, a few paces from her. Overhead, along the waste mountain heights, the wolves howled. Hours passed. Still the wolves howled, and once from the upper darkness Mercedes heard, or fancied that she heard, a scream. * * * * *