of the flesh from the dreadful certainty, and of the spirit from the dread unknown; and to the long fellow’s advance and fierce question, “Who’ll hinder me?” he cried aloud, “I will.”  He turned and shut his eyes, gathered himself together, and sprang out into the awful abyss.  With his arms by his side and his feet together, swift and straight as an arrow, he dropped through the moonlight and through the black shadow, and struck with a quick, keen plunge a moment afterward a dizzy distance down.

Lying on his face, looking down with staring eyes, and clinging fiercely to the stones for a great fear that took hold of him and shook him, the long fellow suddenly heard the shock of an oar, and saw round to the left a boat slide out of the black shadow under the cliffs and into the calm stretch of moonlit water.  He rose up then and fled for miles like a hunted hare.

Field was quickly missed, and suspicion immediately set upon long Bill Trapp.  More people knew of the little drama they and one more had been playing than either had any idea of.  A boy from the Ti House had passed Field up near the old battle-ground, and coming back from the village soon after had followed Trapp and seen him turn up toward the old fort.  A handkerchief was found on the top of the cliff marked “D.F.,” and Field’s hat was found among the rocks along the shore.  A warrant was issued for Trapp’s arrest, and he was hunted high and low by a posse of constables, but not taken.  And meanwhile Field was lying unconscious in an old farm-house by the lake-side a mile or two north.  Old Trapp had been out that night, looking for his son—­he and Bill’s mother had been a good deal worried about him the last week or two—­and the old man had been down to Ti inquiring for him, having heard nothing of him for some days.  He was pulling out, on his way home, from under the rocks below the fort, and saw the two men standing out in the angle of the wall high up.  He saw the awful leap and plunge, rowed round and fished out the limp shape of a young man he had never seen, worked the water out of him, rowed him home and carried him and laid him in bed.  He left him there, breathing but unconscious, and went for Dr. Niedever of Rawdon.  He must have struck his head in some way:  there was a cut on his forehead, but no other serious injury that could be seen.  If he had struck sidewise, it would not have mattered much whether it was water or rock that he struck; but his leap had carried him beyond the debris at the cliff’s foot, and, coming down perfectly straight as he did, ten feet deeper water would have let him off little the worse.  As it was, he was unconscious for some time.  When he came to himself he was extremely weak and hungry, and perfectly contented to let them do with him as they pleased.  The doctor’s daily visits, the movements of the queer old couple as they came in and out, fed him and gave his draughts, the homely old place and the placid expanse of the lake