"I couldn't get it out of my head. I saw him layin' out on the ground, maybe bleedin' to death. I reckoned the thing to do was hike over an' tell you an' Mr. Banks about it an' see what you thought of it. So, after studyin' on it a while longer, I got up an' dressed an' sneaked out of the house. When I got to your house there was a light in the settin'-room window. That scart me, for it was past two o'clock in the mornin'—pretty near three. I let myself in, quiet; an' there was Mr. Banks in the things he goes to bed in—the cotton pants an' little cotton jumpers—asleep in his chair by the settin'-room fire. That gave me another scare. I woke him up. He jumped like I'd stuck a pin into him.
"'Hullo, Dick,' says he. 'I thought it was Reginald. Where is Reginald, anyhow?'
"'Well, where is he?' says I, feelin' kinder faint in my stomach. 'Maybe he's gone to bed. It's three o'clock, anyhow.'
"Then he told me as how you an' him had gone out gunnin' together that mornin,' an' how you hadn't come home yet. Then I felt pretty sick; an' I up an' told him what I was a feared of—but I was too scart and rattled to tell him all I knew about it. It was only guessin', anyhow—though I felt as certain I'd shot you as if I'd seen myself do it. I made up a bit of a yarn for him.
"I told him as how I was in the woods when, about sundown, I heard a rifle shot, an' then a lot of hollerin', an' then a gun shot. I told him what I thought—that maybe somebody had plugged somebody—and how that somebody might be you. Well, he fired a few questions at me, an' then he grabs the lamp an' hits the trail for upstairs. Inside ten minutes he's down again; an' we get lanterns an' brandy an' blankets, an' out we start. It took us a long time to find you—but we did—thank God!
"That's the truth of it, Reginald; an' I couldn't rest easy till you knew of it—an' until I'd had another look at you. What with all the queer things goin' on 'round here of late—an' them cards dealt to you—an' the bad name I have, I was scart to own up to it before."
"I understand," said Rayton slowly—"and I don't blame you, Dick."
He put out his free hand, and they shook heartily.
"You're a rare one," said the trapper. "You're white, clean through."
The Englishman laughed confusedly.