"I'll have him here before morning," said Smith, posting off to get his horse.
The poor sheep-herder was too sorely hurt to last the night out. Before Smith had been two hours on his way the shepherd was in the land of shades, having it out face to face with Epictetus--if he carried the memory of his contention across with him, to be sure.
The neighbors arranged him respectably upon a board, and covered him over with a blanket, keeping watch beside him in the open, with the clear stars shining undisturbed by this thing which made such a turmoil in their breasts. There he lay, waiting the doctor and the coroner, and all who might come, his earthly troubles locked up forever in his cold heart, his earthly argument forever at an end.
Dr. Slavens rode in before dawn, more concerned about Agnes than about the person in whose behalf he had been summoned. On the way he asked Smith repeatedly how the tragedy affected her; whether she was frightened or greatly disturbed.
"She's as steady as a compass," said Smith; and so he found her.
Somewhat too steady, in fact. It was the steadiness of a deep and settled melancholy, through which his best efforts could do no more than strike a feeble, weary smile.
Immediately upon the death of the herder, one of the men had ridden to Meander and carried word to the coroner. That official arrived in the middle of the forenoon, bringing with him the undertaker and a wagon. After some perfunctory inquiries, the coroner concluded that an inquest was not necessary. He did not go to the trouble to find Boyle and question him, but he looked with a familiar understanding in his piggish eyes at Agnes when she related the circumstances of the tragedy.
Coroners, and others who knew the Governor's son, had but one measure for a woman who entertained Jerry Boyle alone in her tent, or even outside it, at night. Boyle's associations had set the standard of his own morality, as well as that of his consorts. The woman from up the river, and the little bride from across the ford, drew off together, whispering, after Agnes had told her story. Presently they slipped away without a word.
Even Dr. Slavens, cool and just-minded as he was, felt the hot stirring of jealous suspicion. It brought to his mind unpleasantly the ruminations of his solitary days in camp among the rocks, when he had turned over in his mind the belief that there was something of the past between Agnes and Boyle.