He started down the south slope of the mountain intending to go through Woodstock and trust to getting a lift to Kingston. He balked at forming any further plan in his mind. He would probably go to a police station, maybe to the prosecutor’s office, he did not know. All he knew was that it was low, contemptible, this being a good citizen. Maybe he would go on to Albany and call on Mr. Borden Merrick, nephew of the murdered man, who had continued the offer of a reward. Perhaps he would—no, the matter wasn’t in his hands. Well, he guessed he would go to a police station.... Down the mountainside he came on Whalen and Fairgreaves. They were standing near a hole which had been dug for a pole. He had thought they were working elsewhere. Sitting with his back against a tree nearby was Billy the sailor smoking a pipe, preliminary to starting work. His absurd little hat was cocked forward and it gave him a look of swaggering indifference, which bespoke his liberal code of conduct. He looked too seasoned and sophisticated to be subjected to arguments by young ladies. It made Tom feel a little mean and false to look at him. Whalen wore his canvas smock. He looked up at Tom with his weary, pleasant smile. Fairgreaves delivered himself of a magnificent gesture of salutation. “Going forth into the world upon your travels?” he asked. “Just for a day or so,” Tom said. He did not pause for he could not speak with Whalen. The pleasant little group made him sick at heart. As he tramped down the road he thought, perhaps he only fancied, that Whalen’s gaze followed him curiously, inquiringly. “Don’t take any bad money from good people,” Billy the sailor called.... It was a hot, dry day, just past the zenith of summer. The dust was thick on the stony road and the bordering woods showed the effects of the drought which had continued from the day of the memorable storm. A few withered leaves had fallen before their time as a result of the arid spell. The grassy ridges along the narrow, enclosed road looked rusty. Tom’s shoes were gray with dust as he made his way disconsolately down the mountain. After a little while he came to Mead’s Mountain House, spacious, white and cool looking in its pleasant clearing on the mountainside. Summer boarders sat upon its spacious veranda and children played about the grounds. The fine old place seemed high enough without going higher. A man in a golf suit called to Tom and asked him how the work was going up the mountain and he answered half-heartedly that things were going all right. “They going to be open for business next season?” the man persisted. “Guess so,” called Tom abstractedly. Another seemingly interminable stretch of steep and dusty mountain road brought him to Reynolds’ at the foot of the mountain. Here an elderly woman with bobbed hair and a young man in a blue velveteen jacket and a streaming yellow scarf bespoke the proximity of Woodstock.