Hammond screamed and snatched the vouchers from Jim's hand. Jim let them go and struck. Hammond fell unconscious. While Mark and Jim worked over the householder with cold water, Mr. Hart calmly examined the crumpled vouchers. "I reckon ye're right, Mr. Todhunter," he said. "It sure does look like he was off his nut for keeps, tryin' to put over a fool play like this right under the nose of the law, so to speak." Hammond recovered consciousness in a few minutes and, under pressure from Hart, led the way to a loft above the wagon-shed, rolled aside a wall of empty barrels and disclosed Jim's baggage to view. Then, to the amazement of the three, he turned to Jim with bowed head. "James, it wasn't yer worldly gear I wanted," he said in a trembling voice. "I run the risk of hanging an' I run the risk of jail, an' I told a lie, all in a vain effort to save yer soul from the hellish lure of Piper's Glen. But the devil's been too strong for me! I forgive ye the blow, James, for it was not yerself who struck me but Old Adam. Take yer empty vanities an' depart in peace." "Empty?" queried Mark Ducat, lifting inquiringly on the end of a trunk. "No, I guess they're full enough, but ye may's well get out yer keys an' take a look, Jim." Mr. Hart stared at Hammond with horrified eyes. "Amos, ye'll go too far one of these days," he said earnestly. "The Almighty is long-sufferin', so I've heered tell, but it ain't in reason to insult Him like ye've just done an' expect to get away with it every time. Have ye no fear, to make a mock of Him by sinnin' in His very name? Look out that a bolt from heaven don't strike ye dead some day!" He turned to Jim. "Any charge agin' this man, Mr. Todhunter?" he asked. "None, sir," replied Jim. "I'll leave it to the bolt from heaven." Half an hour later, Jim and Mark drove off toward Piper's Glen with the baggage intact. They discussed their plans for the winter. They would go north and west beyond the rise of Piper's Brook to the headwaters on Kettle Creek and there trap furs. It was a promising country. An old half-breed, dead now these five years, had once taken a black fox somewhere up around Kettle Pond. Perhaps he had taken more than one of those priceless pelts, but he had shown only one on the river. If he had killed others and kept quiet about them he had practiced commendable business discretion, for Amos Hammond had bought that one from him--after priming him with gin--for fifteen dollars. Mark knew that country fairly well, having hunted moose there several times and cruised timber on the fringe of it once; and he had worked a winter in a lumber camp at the mouth of Kettle Creek and spent his Sundays spying out the land to the north and west of the camp.