here five minutes later you would have gone after him. I can promise you that, Dix.
"Now, listen! I was in the upcountry when I got your word about the partnership; and I was on my way back when at Big Run I broke a stirrup-leather. I had no knife and I went into the store and bought this one; then the storekeeper told me that Alkire had gone to see you. I didn't want to interfere with him and I turned back. … So I did not become your partner. And so I did not disappear. … What was it that prevented? The broken stirrup-leather? The knife? In old times, Dix, men were so blind that God had to open their eyes before they could see His angel in the way before them. … They are still blind, but they ought not to be that blind. … Well, on the night that Alkire disappeared I met him on his way to your house. It was out there at the bridge. He had broken a stirrup-leather and he was trying to fasten it with a nail. He asked me if I had a knife, and I gave him this one. It was beginning to rain and I went on, leaving him there in the road with the knife in his hand."
Abner paused; the muscles of his great iron jaw contracted.
"God forgive me," he said; "it was His angel again! I never saw Alkire after that."
"Nobody ever saw him after that," said Dix. "He got out of the hills that night."
"No," replied Abner; "it was not in the night when Alkire started on his journey; it was in the day."
"Abner," said Dix, "you talk like a fool. If Alkire had traveled the road in the day somebody would have seen him."
"Nobody could see him on the road he traveled," replied Abner.
"What road?" said Dix.
"Dix," replied Abner, "you will learn that soon enough."
Abner looked hard at the man.
"You saw Alkire when he started on his journey," he continued; "but did you see who it was that went with him?"
"Nobody went with him," replied Dix; "Alkire rode alone."
"Not alone," said Abner; "there was another."
"I didn't see him," said Dix.
"And yet," continued Abner, "you made Alkire go with him."
I saw cunning enter Dix's face. He was puzzled, but he thought Abner off the scent.
"And I made Alkire go with somebody, did I? Well, who was it? Did you see him?"
"Nobody ever saw him."
"He must be a stranger."
"No," replied Abner, "he rode the hills before we came into them."
"Indeed!" said Dix. "And what kind of a horse did he ride?"
"White!" said Abner.
Dix got some inkling of what Abner meant now, and his face grew livid.
"What are you driving at?" he cried. "You sit here beating around the bush. If you know anything, say it out; let's hear it. What is it?"
Abner put out his big sinewy hand as though to thrust Dix back into his chair.
"Listen!" he said. "Two days after that I wanted to get out into the Ten Mile country and I went through your lands; I rode a path through the narrow valley west of your house. At a point on the path where there is an apple tree something caught my eye and I stopped. Five minutes later I knew exactly what had happened under that apple tree. … Someone had ridden there; he had stopped under that tree; then something happened and the horse had run away—I knew that by the tracks of a horse on this path. I knew that the horse had a rider and that it had stopped under this tree, because there was a limb cut from the tree at a certain height. I knew the horse had remained there, because the small twigs of the apple limb had been pared off, and they lay in a heap on the path. I knew that something had frightened the horse and that it had run away, because the sod was torn up where it had jumped. … Ten minutes later I knew that the rider had not been in the saddle when the horse jumped; I knew what it was that had frightened the horse; and I knew that the thing had occurred the day before. Now, how did I know that?
"Listen! I put my horse into the tracks of that other horse under the tree and studied the ground. Immediately I saw where the weeds beside the path had been crushed, as though some animal had been lying down there, and in the very center of that bed I saw a little heap of fresh earth. That was strange, Dix, that fresh earth where the animal had been lying down! It had come there after the animal had got up, or else it would have been pressed flat. But where had it come from?
"I got off and walked around the apple tree, moving out from it in an ever-widening circle. Finally I found an ant heap, the top of which had been scraped away as though one had taken up the loose earth in his hands. Then I went back and plucked up some of the earth. The under clods of it were colored as with red paint. … No, it wasn't paint.
"There was a brush fence some fifty yards away. I went over to it and followed it down.
"Opposite the apple tree the weeds were again crushed as though some animal had lain there. I sat down in that place and drew a line with my eye across a log of the fence to a limb of the apple tree. Then I got on my horse and again put him in the tracks of that other horse under the tree; the imaginary line passed through the pit of my stomach! … I am four inches taller than Alkire."
It was then that Dix began to curse. I had seen his face work while Abner was speaking and that spray of sweat had reappeared. But he kept the courage he had got.
"Lord Almighty, man!" he cried. "How prettily you sum it up! We shall presently have Lawyer Abner with his brief. Because my renters have killed a calf; because one of their horses frightened at the blood has bolted, and because they cover the blood with earth so the other horses traveling the path may not do the like; straightway I have shot Alkire out of his saddle. … Man! What a mare's nest! And now, Lawyer Abner, with your neat little conclusions, what did I do with Alkire after I had killed him? Did I cause him to vanish into the air with a smell of sulphur or did I cause the earth to yawn and Alkire to descend into its bowels?"
"Dix," replied Abner, "your words move somewhat near the truth."
"Upon my soul," cried Dix, "you compliment me. If I had that trick of magic, believe me, you would be already some distance down."
Abner remained a moment silent.
"Dix," he said, "what does it mean when one finds a plot of earth resodded?"
"Is that a riddle?" cried Dix. "Well, confound me, if I don't answer it! You charge me with murder and then you fling in this neat conundrum. Now, what could be the answer to that riddle, Abner? If one had done a murder this sod would overlie a grave and Alkire would be in it in his bloody shirt. Do I give the answer?"
"You do not," replied Abner.
"No!" cried Dix. "Your sodded plot no grave, and Alkire not within it waiting for the trump of Gabriel! Why, man, where are your little damned conclusions?"
"Dix," said Abner, "you do not deceive me in the least; Alkire is not sleeping in a grave."
"Then in the air," sneered Dix, "with a smell of sulphur?"
"Nor in the air," said Abner.
"Then consumed with fire, like the priests of Baal?"
"Nor with fire," said Abner.
Dix had got back the quiet of his face; this banter had put him where he was when Abner entered. "This is all fools' talk," he said; "if I had killed Alkire, what could I have done with the body? And the horse! What could I have done with the horse? Remember, no man has ever seen Alkire's horse any more than he has seen Alkire—and for the reason that Alkire rode him out of the hills that night. Now, look here, Abner, you have asked me a good many questions. I will ask you one. Among your little conclusions do you find that I did this thing alone or with the aid of others?"
"Dix," replied Abner, "I will answer that upon my own belief you had no accomplice."
"Then,"