At the end of two or three hours he
returned with two ducks and--the gun."
"That was, at least, honest."
"Yes--but! That fool of a girl says that, as he handed back the
gun, he told her it was all right, and that he had loaded it up
again to save the master trouble."
I think I showed my concern in my face, for he added, hastily: "It
was only duck-shot; a few wouldn't hurt him!"
Nevertheless, we both walked on in silence for a moment. "I
thought the gun kicked a little," he said at last, musingly; "but
the idea of-- Hallo! what's this?"
He stopped before the hollow where I had first seen my Tramp. It
was deserted, but on the mosses there were spots of blood and
fragments of an old gown, blood-stained, as if used for bandages.
I looked at it closely: it was the gown intended for the
consumptive wife of my friend, the Tramp.
But my host was already nervously tracking the bloodstains that on
rock, moss, and boulder were steadily leading toward the sea. When
I overtook him at last on the shore, he was standing before a flat
rock, on which lay a bundle I recognized, tied up in a
handkerchief, and a crooked grape-vine stick.
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