He and Ezram had had their last laugh together.  He lay very still, the moonlight ensilvering his droll, kindly face,—­sleeping so deeply that no human voice could ever waken him.  An ugly rifle wound yawned darkly at his temple.

XV

The first effect of a great shock is usually a semi-paralysis of the entire mental mechanism and is, as a rule, beneficent.  The brain seems to be enclosed in a great preoccupation, like a wall, and the messages of pain and horror brought by the nerves batter against it in vain.  The senses are dulled, the perceptions blunted, and full realization does not come.

For a long time, in which time itself stood still, Ben sat beside the dead body of his old counselor and friend as a child might sit among flowers.  He half leaned forward, his arms limp, his hands resting in his lap, a deep wonder and bewilderment in his eyes.  Dully he watched the moon lifting in the sky and felt the caress of the wind against his face, glancing only from time to time at the huddled body before him.  The wolf whined softly, and sometimes Ben reached his hand to caress the furry shoulder.

But slowly his wandering faculties returned to him.  He began to understand.  Ezram was dead—­that was it—­gone from his life as smoke goes in the air.  Never to hear him again, or see him, or make plans with him, or have high adventures beside him along the lonely trails.  Fenris had found him in the darkness:  here he lay—­the old family friend, the man who had saved him, redeemed him and given him his chance, his old “buddy” who had brought him home.  The thing was not credible at first:  that here, dead as a stone, lay the shell of that life that had been his own salvation.  He studied intently the gray face, missed its habitual smile and for really the first time his gaze rested upon the yawning wound in the temple.

He gazed at it in speechless, growing horror, and something like an incredible cold descended upon him.  The entire hydraulic system of his blood seemed to be freezing.  His hands were cold, his vitals icy and lifeless.  There was, however, the beginning of heat somewhere back of his eyes.  He could feel it but dimly, but it was increasing, slowly, like a smoldering coal that eats its way into wood and soon will burst into a flame.  Slowly he began to grow rigid, his muscles flexing.  His face underwent a tangible change.  The lines deepened, the lips set in a hard line, the eyes were like those of a reptile,—­cold, passionless, unutterably terrible.  His face was pale like the paleness of death, but it appeared more like hard, white metal than flesh.  His mind began to work clear again; he began to understand.

Ezram had been shot, murdered by the men who had jumped his claim.  Beatrice’s father, who had talked to him, had probably committed the crime:  if not he, one of his understrappers at his order.  He found himself recalling what Jeffery Neilson had said.  Oh, the man had been sharp!  Believing that in the depth of the forest the body would never be discovered, he had tried to send Ben farther into the interior in search of him.