“What! What! You mustn’t!” he cried.
“Go and get a spade,” she said. “I’ll fetch the money.”[money.”] And, seizing the ax, she thrust him aside as he stood in the doorway. “You white-livered coward, get out of my way, or I’ll brain you.”
He shrunk aside. He could only say, “Susie! Susie! Don’t—don’t!”
“Off with you!” And passing him, with no more words, she ran around the cabin and disappeared in the darkening forest.
This time she moved with extreme caution, so as to approach her victim in another direction. Nevertheless, being, like most of the forest-dwelling women, a fair shot, she felt coolly certain of her prey.
After leaving Joe, Carington had followed the brook, or rather the trail beside it, for some hundred yards, when he noticed a gleam of white among the shadows. Anything unusual in the forest is sure to win instant notice from men accustomed to wandering and to keeping all their senses alert. Moreover, he was now keenly observant. He stopped, and, crossing the brook, broke through the undergrowth, and stood at once in a clearing some twenty yards wide. As he came nearer to the three little mounds, now dimly visible, he saw the white slab, and instantly understood that his guess had been correct. A little while he remained still, in thought recalling what Dorothy had said, and gradually seeing in his mind the pitifulness of it all: the crude animal eagerness of the mother; the rough, unthinking man’s wish to please her.
At last, laying aside his rifle, he knelt down, and, unable to see, felt with his hands the surface of the stone. “Ah!” he exclaimed, recognizing on the back the dints poor Joe’s tool had made. Next he struck a match, and, guarding it with his hands, read the inscription. The match went out before he had quite done. He lit another.
“Ah me!” he murmured; “this is a strange world.” And he read, “Of such are the kingdom of heaven.” “What a sad business!”
He lifted his hand to cast aside the still-burning match. At this instant, while still on his knees, there was a flash of light. He heard no sound, but fell across the graves, motionless.
Meanwhile, Jack, with swift feet, eager for home, trotted down the broken road, and, to his disgust, finding no porcupines, struck easily into the cross-road, and, passing the boulder, moved away along the forest-track. At last the way became less and less plain; but, trusting by habit to his sense of direction, he pushed on into the wood.