In any case, we had not journeyed far before we came upon the still, huddled form of him who had once been known as Joshua Trust, who now lay a corpse, in a pool of his own blood, upon the trail that he had followed.
John Bannister kneeled down upon the ground beside the body, but presently got sharply to his feet.
"Stone-dead," said he, and nodded sagely, as if to signify that hither in the end go all things weak and mortal.
"Shot?" I asked.
"By Amos. Through the heart."
We stood in silence around the body, and I know that I was thinking that it would be no more than common decency to bury this poor, misguided man where he had fallen, when there came to my ears a sound that made my very blood run cold.
It was a sound of laughter, faint and far away. Never in my wildest nightmares had I heard laughter to compare to that. It was the laughter of a fiend, terrible to listen to, for there was something in it of the chuckling of an old, demented man, the cry of a new-born child, and the senseless mirth of one who is delirious.
In that half-light we looked at one another. There was cold fear in the eyes of us all, even in the eyes of John Bannister, who I did not know had fear of anything that lived upon the earth.
"Amos!" he exclaimed. But his voice was no more than a whisper.
I saw that Forsyth shuddered. And then that man, as a rule so calm and nonchalant, who had always seemed to me to dread nothing so much as that he might show his feelings, burst forth in the hottest indignation. I shall never forget that moment, for it was the only occasion upon which I saw John Bannister afraid, and Mr. Forsyth alive--a living, sentient being--in every fibre of his body.