"When I got kind o' wore out with wollopin' him, I sot down to rest on the edge o' the waterin' trough, an' she comes over to me an' sez she wished I'd stay an' help her bury the old man. She said if I'd wait there she'd go an' get a couple o' spades out'n the barn,--well, to make a long story short, soon as Mart begin to realize he was dead an' wasn't goin' to have a regular funeral, with mourners an' all that, he sot up an' begin to whine all over ag'in. So I up an' told him if I ever heerd of him lickin' his gal ag'in, I'd come down an' take off what little hide there was left on him. He said he'd never lick her ag'in as long as he lived. So I sez to Moll, sez I, 'If you ever got anything to complain of about this here white-livered weasel, you jest come straight to me, an' I'll make him sorry he didn't get into hell sooner.' Well, sir, after that he never licked her without fust tyin' somethin' over her mouth so's she couldn't yell, an' it wasn't till this afternoon that I found out he'd been at it all along, same as ever, 'cept when Barry Lapelle was there. Seems that Barry stopped him from lickin' her once, an' that made Moll foller him around like a dog tryin' to lick his hand. No, sir, she won't be heartbroke if somebody puts a rifle ball between Mart's eyes an' loses it some'eres back inside his skull. She'd do it herself if she wasn't so doggoned sure somebody else is goin' to do it, sooner or later." "You say there was no one at home up at Mrs. Gwyn's?" observed Kenneth, apprehensively. "That's queer. Where do you suppose they are?" "That's what I'm wonderin' about. Mrs. Gwyn never goes nowhere, 'cept out to the farm, an' I'm purty sure she didn't--Say, do you hear somebody comin' up the road behind us?" He laid a hand on Kenneth's arm and they both stopped to listen. "I hear no one," said the young man. "Well, you ain't got a hunter's ears," said the other. "Some one's follerin' us,--a good ways back. I've got so's I c'n hear an acorn drop forty mile away." They drew off into the shadows at the roadside and waited. Twenty yards or more ahead gleamed the lights in the windows of the nearest store. A few seconds elapsed, and then Kenneth's ears caught the sound of footsteps in the soft dirt road, and presently the subdued murmur of voices. "Women," observed Stain, laconically, lowering his voice. "Let 'em pass. If we show ourselves now, they'll think we're highwaymen or something, an' begin screechin' fer dear life." Two vague, almost indistinguishable figures took shape in the darkness down the road and rapidly drew nearer. They passed within ten feet of the two men,--black voiceless shadows. Stain's hand still gripped his companion's arm. The women had almost reached the patches of light cast upon the road from the store windows, before the hunter spoke. "Recognize 'em?" he whispered. "No." "Well, I guess I know now why there wasn't nobody to home up yander. That was Violy an' her ma."