"The old fellow has had much trouble," he thought, "but he seems to enjoy the sport of a feudal fight." Wade attended to his own stock and then lay down for a few hours of rest. The strenuous night had been too much for his nerves, but there was much other trouble before him of which he little dreamed as he lay across his bed to rest. He was not long in falling fast asleep, and it was near noon by the sun when he was awakened by the low whine of Rover standing at the door. Wade rose and shook himself much after the fashion of a dog coming out of the water. His head felt heavy, his brain dull. The events of the night before were trying to fix themselves in his memory, but he could not shape them. He had faint recollection of all he had gone through from the time of hearing the dog-horn, the two successive rifle shots, his hasty rush through the fields to Judson's, and then, ah, then, of his acceptance of the invitation to go out into the darkness of the night to watch the fun of flogging a farmer. It all passed hazily through his sleep-clogged brain. He could now see it all just as it happened, the firing of rifles, his own hasty retreat, the running conversation of old Peter Judson, as he encouraged him to keep up a continuous fire on the dark spots in the road behind them; then Peter's exclamation that the end of his finger had been shot away by the murderous marksmen, the escape, and finally the return to his own cabin. He could not keep these events out of his memory, they were there as dark spots and would remain so forever. Reaching for his coat, he made the discovery that he had narrowly escaped death, for there, a half-inch from the second button from the top, was the tell-tale hole made by a Winchester bullet. He could remember now just when the bullet which had nearly taken his life flew by him. He had heard the "zing!" and the "swish!" but had not suspected that it came so close to boring a hole through his heart. A cold shudder ran over him as he thought of the close proximity to death. Ah, well, that was life in the mountains, that was the fulfillment of the "call of the wilds," and he must not now complain. Wade seemed stupefied. All the while he dreamed the good old brown dog looked longingly up into his careworn face, as if to say, "What's the matter, master?" But there was no reply.