“Look thar!” And Brackton flashed the light upon a man lying prostrate.

Bostil recognized the pale face of Joel Creech.  “Brack! . . .  What’s this?  Is he dead?” Bostil sustained a strange, incomprehensible shock.  Sight of a dead man had never before shocked him.

“Nope, he ain’t dead, which if he was might be good for this community,” replied Brackton.  “He’s only fallen in a fit.  Fust off I reckoned he was drunk.  But it ain’t thet.”

“Wal, what do you want to show him to me for?” demanded Bostil, gruffly.

“I reckoned you oughter see him.”

“An’ why, Brackton?”

Brackton set down the lantern and, pushing Slone outside, said:  “Jest a minnit, son,” and then he closed the door.  “Joel’s been on my hands since the flood cut him off from home,” said Brackton.  “An’ he’s been some trial.  But nobody else would have done nothin’ for him, so I had to.  I reckon I felt sorry for him.  He cried like a baby thet had lost its mother.  Then he gets wild-lookin’ an’ raved around.  When I wasn’t busy I kept an eye on him.  But some of the time I couldn’t, an’ he stole drinks, which made him wuss.  An’ when I seen he was tryin’ to sneak one of my guns, I up an’ gets suspicious.  Once he said, ‘My dad’s hosses are goin’ to starve, an’ I’m goin’ to kill somebody!’ He was out of his head an’ dangerous.  Wal, I was worried some, but all I could do was lock up my guns.  Last night I caught him confabin’ with some men out in the dark, behind the store.  They all skedaddled except Joel, but I recognized Cordts.  I didn’t like this, nuther.  Joel was surly an’ ugly.  An’ when one of the riders called him he said:  ’Thet boat never drifted off.  Fer the night of the flood I went down there myself an’ tied the ropes.  They never come untied.  Somebody cut them—­jest before the flood—­to make sure my dad’s hosses couldn’t be crossed.  Somebody figgered the river an’ the flood.  An’ if my dad’s hosses starve I’m goin’ to kill somebody!’”

Brackton took up the lantern and placed a hand on the door ready to go out.

“Then a rider punched Joel—­I never seen who—­an’ Joel had a fit.  I dragged him in here.  An’ as you see, he ain’t come to yet.”

“Wal, Brackton, the boy’s crazy,” said Bostil.

“So I reckon.  An’ I’m afeared he’ll burn us out—­he’s crazy on fires, anyway—­or do somethin’ like.”

“He’s sure a problem.  Wal, we’ll see,” replied Bostil, soberly.

And they went out to find Slone waiting.  Then Bostil called his guests, and with Slone also accompanying him, went home.

Bostil threw off the recurring gloom, and he was good-natured when Lucy came to his room to say good night.  He knew she had come to say more than that.

“Hello, daughter!” he said.  “Aren’t you ashamed to come facin’ your poor old dad?”

Lucy eyed him dubiously.  “No, I’m not ashamed.  But I’m still a little—­afraid.”