He found that his mind had carried over from the previous night the bitter hate toward Sleeman which had been with him during his six years’ absence from home, and in an intensified degree. Before setting out on his visit to Sleeman he walked up the hill at the back of the house, to the little enclosed piece of ground where were the graves of his father and mother. The poplars and birches about were bare and gaunt, but the balsams and spruce clustered in a kindly way near the little plot, and overhead the tall pines waved their feathery tops and sighed softly in the wind. To Paul the place was as a temple of God, but as he looked upon his father’s grave and remembered how it was that he came to be lying there, into his heart there came a prayer that justice should be done on him who had wrought this evil, and with the prayer a solemn vow that the execution of that act of justice should not be by his hand. For to him it came clear and certain that this matter lay in other hands than his and that he should hold himself in readiness to act only as he should be clearly guided. That he would be guided was to him a settled conviction that left him with mind undisturbed and will resolved to follow the path that should be made clear to him. In this mind he set forth on his journey. He took the old mountain trail to the Sleeman ranch. Every turn in the trail was familiar to him, every turn associated with some incident in his boyhood days. But he was in no mood to linger. Swiftly he rode and came to the door of Sleeman’s new house, which stood on a site a little removed from that which had been fired by his father’s Indian wife. The door of the living room was open and standing within was Sleeman, lighting his pipe. Without knocking Paul entered the room and walking slowly toward Sleeman spoke in tones that cut like cold steel, “I am Paul Gaspard. I have business with you.” At his words Sleeman’s face turned a sickly, greenish yellow, the pipe slipped from his fingers and fell clattering to the floor. He backed away toward the door of an inner room, opened it and with a swift leap was behind it, locked. “Open that door,” commanded Paul. A moment he waited, then drove his heel at the lock just below the door knob. With a crash the door flew open. Within the room Sleeman was standing, a gun in his hand, hanging loose by his side. “Keep back,” he shouted hoarsely. “Put—that—gun—down—quick!” came from Paul in sharp, staccato tones. “You keep out of this room,” said Sleeman, in a blustering voice that shook for all his bravado. A movement swifter than the eye could follow, the snap of a gun, and Sleeman’s gun was flung against the wall, his fingers dripping blood.