“Yes; but you’ve finished me, so there isn’t much left.”

“Are you the man, Brazey, who has haunted me ever since we came in this country?  Are you the person who carried away poor, dear Cora?”

“Yes—­yes!” answered the man, with fainting weariness.

Such, indeed, was the case.  The strange hunter and the Indian known as Mahogany were one and the same person.

“Brazey, why have you haunted me thus, and done me this great wrong?”

“I cannot tell.  When I thought how you took her from me, it made me crazy when I thought about it.  I wanted to take her from you, but I wouldn’t have dared to do that if you hadn’t struck me.  I wanted revenge then.”

“What have you done with her?”

“She is gone, I haven’t seen her since the day after I seized her, when a band of Indians took her from me, and went up north with her.  They have got her yet, I know, for I have kept watch over her, and she is safe, but is a close prisoner.”  This he said with great difficulty.

“Brazey, you are dying.  I forgive you.  But does your heart tell you you are at peace with Him whom you have offended so grievously?”

“It’s too late to talk of that now.  It might have done years ago, when I was an honest man like yourself, and before I became a vagabond, bent on injuring one who had never really injured me.”

“It is never too late for God to forgive—­”

“Too late—­too late, I tell you! There!” He rose upon his elbow, his eyes burning with insane light and his hand extended.  “I see her—­she is coming, her white robes floating on the air.  Oh, God, forgive me that I did her the great wrong!  But, she smiles upon me—­she forgives me!  I thank thee, angel of good——­”

He sunk slowly backward, and Harvey Richter eased the head softly down upon the turf.  Brazey Davis was no more.

CHAPTER X.

CONCLUSION.

  Heart leaps to heart—­the sacred flood
    That warms us is the same;
  That good old man—­his honest blood
    Alike we frankly claim.—­SPRAGUE.

The missionary gazed sadly upon the inanimate form before him.  He saw the playmate of his childhood stricken down in death by his own hand, which never should have taken human life, and although the act was justifiable under the circumstances, the good man could but mourn the painful necessity that occasioned it.  The story, although possessing tragic interest, was a brief one.  Brazey Davis, as he had always been termed, was a few years older than himself, and a native of the same neighborhood.  He was known in childhood as one possessing a vindictive spirit that could never forgive an injury—­as a person who would not hesitate at any means to obtain revenge.  It so happened that he became desperately enamored of the beautiful Cora Brandon, but becoming aware, at length, that she was the betrothed of Harvey