"Parson, you will build a new church with the money, and somewhere in it remember the ones who are gone. Tony, Hans, Reed, there is something for all of you. Dan, the old place is yours; keep it till I come. All I shall take is Bess and my mother's Testament.
"Farewell, Dan. Farewell, neighbors. God bless you, Tony; and, when you pray, don't forget me;" and, striding across the room, Job Malden was gone.
By the gate he tarried a moment, put his arms round Shot's shaggy neck and kissed him, sprang on Bess' back, gave one last look at Pine Tree Ranch, and was off.
There, in a silent, awed group, they stood in the door-yard and watched him go through the pasture gate. Across the hills, the sunset and the twilight fell on forest and fields and hearts.
That night, men say, a dark shadow stole out of the graveyard at midnight and galloped away. Far below in the Coyote Valley, where the road to the plains goes down from the hill, some one said that—lying awake near the window, in the stillness which comes towards morning—he heard the sound of horse's hoofs going by, and rider and horse swept on far down the road.
