hour before sunset the man, who had been at work all day, turned out of the cornfield. He crossed the furrows to the rail fence, with the hoe in his hands. At the bars leading into the field a squirrel rifle, with a long wooden stock reaching to the end of the barrel, stood against the chestnut post; beside it lay a powder-horn attached to a pouch of deerskin containing bullets. The man set his hoe against the fence. He wiped his hands on the coarse fox-grass growing in the furrows, examined the sun for a moment, then took up the rifle, removed an exploded cap from the nipple, and began to load it.
He poured the black powder into his palm, and bending his palm emptied it into the barrel. The measure of powder was a sufficient charge, but be added to it half the quantity again, emptied into his palm from the horn. Then he took a handful of bullets out of the pouch, selected one of which the neck was squarely cut, and placing a tiny fragment of calico over the muzzle of the rifle, drew out the hickory ramrod and forced the bullet down. He got a percussion cap out of a paper box, examined it, placed it on the nipple, and gently pressed it down with the hammer of the lock.
When the gun was thus carefully loaded the man threw it across his shoulder and, taking the horn and pouch in his hand, left the field. He went along a path leading through a wood to the valley below. Midway of the wood he stopped and concealed the horn and pouch in a hollow tree. Then he continued on his way with the rifle tucked under his arm.
The country below him was one of little farms, skirted by trees lining the crests of low hills. The man traveled for several miles, keeping in the shelter of the wood. Finally, he crossed a river on a fallen tree and sat down in a thicket behind a rail fence. Beyond this fence was a pasture field and a score of grazing cattle. In this field, some twenty paces from where the man sat, the earth was bare in little patches where the owner of the cattle had been accustomed to give them salt.
The sun was still visible, but great shadows were beginning to lengthen across the valley. Presently an old man, riding a gray horse, entered the field from the road. When he came through the gate, tho man concealed in the brush cocked his rifle, laid the muzzle on a rail of the fence, and waited, with his jaw pressed against the stock. The old man rode leisurely across the field to the place where he had been accustomed to 'salt' his cattle. There he got down, opened a bag which, he carried across the pommel of his saddle, and began to drop handfuls of salt on the bare patches in the pasture. From time to time he called the cattle, and when he did so he stood up with his back toward the fence, looking at the bullocks approaching slowly from another quarter of the field.
There was a sharp report. The old man turned stiffly on his heels with his arms spread out. His face was distorted with amazement, then it changed to terror. He called out something, in a thick, choked voice; then he fell with his arms doubled under him.
A thin wisp of smoke floated up from the rail fence; the horse, however, did not move; it remained standing with its bridle-rein lying on the earth. The cattle continued to approach. The man in the brush arose. The dead man had called out his name 'Henry Fuget.' Of that he was certain. That he had distinctly heard. But of the other words he was not so certain. He thought the old man had said, 'You shall hear from me!' But the words were choked in the throat. He might have heard incorrectly. He looked carefully about him to be sure that no one had heard his name thus called out; then he took up his rifle, crossed the river on the fallen tree, and returned toward the cornfield.
He was a stout, compactly-built man of middle life. His hair was dark, but his eyes were blue. He was evidently of Celtic origin. He walked slowly, like one who neither delays nor hurries. He got the horn and pouch from the hollow tree as he passed, reloaded his rifle, shot one or two gray squirrels out of the maple trees, took them in his hand, and went down the ridge through the little valley, to a farmhouse. He had traveled seven miles, and it was now night.