Mr. Harkutt with evident reluctance drew the bolts. The wind, still boisterous and besieging, did the rest, and precipitately propelled Peters through the carefully guarded opening. But his surprise at finding himself in the darkness seemed to forestall any explanation of his visit.
“Well,” he said with an odd mingling of reproach and suspicion. “I declare I saw a light here just this minit! That's queer.”
“Yes, I put it out just now. I was goin' away,” replied Harkutt, with ill-disguised impatience.
“What! been here ever since?”
“No,” said Harkutt curtly.
“Well, I want to speak to ye about 'Lige. Seein' the candle shinin' through the chinks I thought he might be still with ye. If he ain't, it looks bad. Light up, can't ye! I want to show you something.”
There was a peremptoriness in his tone that struck Harkutt disagreeably, but observing that he was carrying something in his hand, he somewhat nervously re-lit the candle and faced him. Peters had a hat in his hand. It was 'Lige's!
“'Bout an hour after we fellers left here,” said Peters, “I heard the rattlin' of hoofs on the road, and then it seemed to stop just by my house. I went out with a lantern, and, darn my skin! if there warn't 'Lige's hoss, the saddle empty, and 'Lige nowhere! I looked round and called him—but nothing were to be seen. Thinkin' he might have slipped off—tho' ez a general rule drunken men don't, and he is a good rider—I followed down the road, lookin' for him. I kept on follerin' it down to your run, half a mile below.”
“But,” began Harkutt, with a quick nervous laugh, “you don't reckon that because of that he”—
“Hold on!” said Peters, grimly producing a revolver from his side-pocket with the stock and barrel clogged and streaked with mud. “I found THAT too,—and look! one barrel discharged! And,” he added hurriedly, as approaching a climax, “look ye,—what I nat'rally took for wet from the rain—inside that hat—was—blood!”