"No. I've slipped. I don't forget."
He did forget. He did not remember that he was a thief, standing there. Whatever substance had been in him at his birth trustworthy rose up now to meet the voice of God that called to him aloud. His lank jaws grew red, his eyes a deeper blue, a look in them which his mother may have seen the like of years and years ago; he beat with his knuckles on his breast nervously.
"If there could be a chance!" he said, unceasingly; "if I might try again!"
There was a crackling in the snow-laden bushes upon the hill: he looked back, and saw his brother coming from the other side, his game-bag over his shoulder, stooping to avoid notice, his eyes fixed intently on some object on the road beyond. It was an old man on horseback, jogging slowly up the path, whistling as he came. Yarrow shuddered with a sudden horror.
"He means murder! That is Frazier. You could not do it to-day, John! To-day!" as if Soulé could hear him.
He was between his brother and his victim. The old man came slower, the hill being steep, looking at the frosted trees, and seeing neither Yarrow nor the burly figure crouching, tiger-like, among the bushes. One moment, and he would have passed the bend of the hill,—Soulé could reach him.
"God help me!" whispered Yarrow, and threw himself forward, pushing the horse back on his haunches. "Go back! Ten steps farther, and it's too late! Back, I say!"
The old man gasped.
"Why! what! a slip? an' water-gully?"
"No matter," leading the horse, trembling from head to foot.