I have not moved from the spot since she left me. I have carefully cleaned and loaded the weapon I have carried so long—the instrument in my hand of God’s vengeance. Before another sun rises it will be over.
I sit and look at the cottage the child pointed out. I can see that it is neat and comfortable. The sun is going down, and the windows on this side are red as blood. So is all the snow between this place and that. I shall wait until night. I feel no fear, no remorse; and yet, if the child had not had his eyes——
Meanwhile the men who were waiting for Dixon’s return became a little restive, as the minutes dragged along and he did not appear. Even those ready means of beguiling time common to men of their stamp—the telling of highly-seasoned and apropos stories interspersed with frequent libations, began to pall. Some of them stole away to their neglected dinners, returning shortly with a renewed sense of wonder as they still found him absent.
And the stark figure lay there in their midst, itself for the time forgotten in the stories and conjectures its presence had evoked, the faint smile frozen on its unshaven lips, the half-open eyes fixed seemingly upon the door with a terrible intentness.
At last one of the men who was near a window overlooking the street, said:
“He’s comin’!” and a moment or two later, “I swear, he’s paler’n the dead man his self!”
“Mebbe it’s his long-lost brother!” suggested the vagabond Shanks, who was given to pleasantries of this sort.
“He was always that a way!” declared another. “They’s men as can’t look at a corpse without turnin’ white around the gills, an’ Dixon’s one on ’em! I’ve seen him a-fore. An’ he ain’t no coward, neither!”