At last, with many hesitations, the old man signed.  The other two men, rubbing their eyes sleepily, put down their names as witnesses, and, shivering in the night chill, crawled back to rest, without any very clear idea of what they had been called on to do.  Bob leaned back in his chair, the precious document clasped tight.  The taut cords of his being had relaxed.  For a moment he rested.  To his consciousness dully penetrated the sound of a rooster crowing.

“Don’t see how you keep chickens,” he found himself saying; “we can’t.  Coyotes and cats get ’em.  I wish you’d tell me.”

Opposite him sat old Samuels, his head forward, motionless as a graven image.  Between them the new candle, brought for the signing of the relinquishment, flared and sputtered.

Bob stumbled to his feet.

“Good night,” said he.

Samuels neither moved nor stirred.  He might have been a figure such as used to be placed before the entrances of wax works exhibitions, so still he sat, so fixed were his eyes, so pallid the texture of his weather-tanned flesh after the vigil.

Bob went out to the verandah.  The chill air stirred his blood, set in motion the run-down machinery of his physical being.  From the darkness a bird chirped loudly.  Bob looked up.  Over the still, pointed tops of the trees the sky had turned faintly gray.  From the window streamed the candle light.  It seemed unwontedly yellow in contrast to a daylight that, save by this contrast, was not yet visible.  Bob stepped from the verandah.  As he passed the window, he looked in.  Samuels had risen to his feet, and stood rigid, his clenched fist on the table.

At the stable Bob spoke quietly to his animals, saddled them, and led them out.  For some instinctive reason which he could not have explained, he had decided to be immediately about his journey.  The cold gray of dawn had come, and objects were visible dimly.  Bob led his horses to the edge of the wood.  There he mounted.  When well within the trees he looked back.  Samuels stood on the edge of the verandah, peering out into the uncertain light of the dawn.  From the darkness of the trees Bob made out distinctly the white of his mane-like hair and the sweep of his patriarchal beard.  Across the hollow of his left arm he carried his shotgun.

Bob touched spur to his saddle horse and vanished in the depths of the forest.

XV

Bob delivered his relinquishment at headquarters, and received the news.

George Pollock had been arrested for the murder of Plant, and now lay in jail.  Erbe, the White Oaks lawyer, had undertaken charge of his case.  The evidence was as yet purely circumstantial.  Erbe had naturally given out no intimation of what his defence would be.