The ribbon of sunlight had crept further and further round until it stretched itself across the broad, white forehead, and we stood in greater awe than when the angel of death had hovered there. Suddenly before us a dazzling ray had flashed out from the black waste of that sinful life. The unbroken check went back to Canada. A month later I was riding in the country. A purple light overhung the shadowy prairie, which stretched away, broad, level and without bound. Occasionally a wild bird rose up and darted with swift wings, seeking a resting place, for already the September moon waited the coming night. Nearer, the tall weeds raised themselves from the great, soundless ocean of grass, like the masts of receding vessels. A single wagon, the only object on all the void prairie, stood out bold and sharp against the bright line of the horizon, and clearly defined above the driver, high up on top of the hay, the figure of a man cut the sky. Even at that distance I knew it was Boydell. Some one had given him a little money, and with renewed health and spirits he was going out of M——. Whither? [Illustration] [Illustration] THE DEATH-WATCH. “Didn’t you hear it?” “When?” “Just now.” “No.” “They say it foretells death. Hush!” The two men sat motionless. Not a sound broke the silence, not even a creak of the old boards in the floor, or a sigh of the wind, or a flapping shutter. “They say it foretells death. I heard it last night and the night before. What’s that?” “Nothing. It’s stiller than a graveyard.” “I heard it last night, and the night before about this time, near one. ’Taint a very pleasant sound, and this old garret’s dismal enough any way.” “Monk, you’re afeard. It’s nothing. Don’t waste no more time. I’m dead-tired and sleepy. You wouldn’t have been in this old hole now if it hadn’t been for Peters.” “No, if it hadn’t been for Peters, the strike, like enough, would have took. But he won’t stand in nobody’s way again.” While Monk spoke, he drew out a sharp, slender knife, and ran his finger along the blade. “I tell you, Shiflet, we must do it the night after this blast’s done, and the men in the shed say the coal will run out on the 6th, that’s to-morrow. When Peters is fixed, the managers will have to give in or quit runnin’ the furnace.” Both men sat with their arms leaning on the table, and the flickering light of the tallow candle between them showed two faces, rough, begrimed by smoke and soot, and disfigured by evil passions, that grew fiercer as they calmly plotted against the life of a fellow-being. “We’ll meet at one, where the roads cross. It’ll be quiet then, and Peters’s house is alone.” “I’ll be all right,” said Shiflet, with a grin that rendered his brute-like countenance doubly repulsive. “I’m confounded tired. Bring your candle and light me down them infernal stairs.”