Without a sound, the figure in the rough bunk quivered and stiffened; the hand upon the coverlet was clenched until the nails grew white, then it relaxed.  Slowly, very slowly, the eyelids closed as though in sleep.

Impassive but intent listener, an instinct now sent the boy Benjamin back to his post.

“Mamma,” he said gently.  “Mamma!”

There was no answer, nor even a responsive pressure of the hand.

“Mamma!” he repeated more loudly.  “Mamma!  Mamma!”

Still no answer, only the limp passivity.  Then suddenly, although never before in his short life had the little lad looked upon death, he recognized it now.  His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this; she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak to him or smile upon him again!  Like a thunderclap came the realization of this.  Then another thought swiftly followed.  This man,—­one who had said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her cheeks,—­this man was to blame.  Not in the least did he understand the meaning of what he had just heard.  No human being had suggested to him that Blair was the cause of his mother’s death; but as surely as he would remember their words as long as he lived, so surely did he recognize the man’s guilt.  Suddenly, as powder responds to the spark, there surged through his tiny body a terrible animal hate for this man, and, scarcely realizing the action, he rushed at him.

“She’s dead and you killed her!” he screamed.  “Mamma’s dead, dead!” and the little doubled fists struck at the man’s legs again and again.

Oblivious to the onslaught, Tom Blair strode over to the bunk.

“Jennie,” he said, not unkindly, “Jennie, what’s the matter?”

Again there was no response, and a shade of awe crept into the man’s voice.

“Jennie!  Jennie!  Answer me!” A hand fell upon the woman’s shoulder and shook it, first gently, then roughly.  “Answer me, I say!”

With the motion, the head of the dead shifted upon the pillow and turned toward the man, and involuntarily he loosened his grasp.  He had not eaten for twenty-four hours, and in sudden weakness he made his way to one of the rough chairs, and sat down, his face buried in his hands.

Behind him the boy Benjamin, his sudden hot passion over, stood watching intently,—­his face almost uncanny in its lack of childishness.

For a time there was absolute silence, the hush of a death-chamber; then of a sudden the boy was conscious that the man was looking at him in a way he had never looked before.  Deep down below our consciousness, far beneath the veneer of civilization, there is an instinct, relic of the vigilant savage days, that warns us of personal danger.  By this instinct the lad now interpreted the other’s gaze, and knew that it meant ill for him.  For some reason which he could not understand, this man, this big animal, was his mortal enemy; and, in the manner of smaller animals, he began to consider an avenue of escape.