第51章 HOW THE KILLER WAS SINGED(3)

He prayed that the moon might keep in but a little longer; that his feet might be saved from falling, where a slip might well mean death, certain destruction to any chance of succ~s. He cursed his luck that Th' Owcl Un had somehow missed him in the dark; for now he must trust to chance, his own great~ strength, and his good oak stick. And he a~ climbed, he laid his plan: to rush in on the Killer as he still gorged and grapple with him. If in the darkness he missed--and in that narrow arena the contingency was improbable--the murderer might still, in the panic of the moment, forget the one path to safety and leap over the Fall to his destruction.

At length he reached the summit and paused to draw breath. The black void before him was the Scoop, and in its bosom--not ten yards away--must be lying the Killer and the killed.

He crouched against the wet rock-face and listened. In that dark silence, poised 'twixt heaven and earth, he seemed a million miles apart from living soul.

No sound, and yet the murderer must be there. Ay, there was the tinkle of a dislodged stone; and again, the tread of stealthy feet.

The Killer was moving; alarmed; was off.

Quick!

He rose to his full height; gathered himself, and leapt.

Something collided with him as he sprang; something wrestled madly with him; something wrenched from beneath him; and in a clap he heard the thud of a body striking ground far below, and the slithering and splattering of some creature speeding furiously down the hill-side and away.

"Who the blazes?" roared he.

"What the devil?" screamed a little voice.

The moon shone out.

"Moore!"

"M'Adam!"

And there they were still struggling over the body of a dead sheep.

In a second they had disengaged and rushed to the edge of the Fall.

In the quiet they could still hear the scrambling hurry of the fugitive far below them. Nothing was to be seen, however, save an array of startled sheep on the hill-side, mute witnesses of the murderer's escape.

The two men turned and eyed each other; the one grim, the other sardonic: both dishevelled and suspicious.

"Well?''

Weel?"

A pause and, careful scrutiny.

"There's blood on your coat."

"And on yours~"

Together they walked hack into the little moon-lit hollow. There lay the murdered sheep in a pool of blood. Plain it was to see whence the marks on their coats came. M'Adam touched the victim's head with his~ foot. The movement exposed its throat,.

With a shudder he replaced it as it was.

The two men stood back and eyed one another.

"What are yo' doin' here?"

"After the Killer. What are you?"

"After the Killer?"

"Hoo did you come?"

"Up this path," pointing to the one behind him. "Hoo did you?""Up this."

Silence; then again:

"I'd ha' had him but for yo'."

"I did have him, but ye tore me aff,"

A pause again.

"Where's yer gray dog?" This time the challenge was unmistakable.

"I sent him after the Killer. Wheer's your Red Wull?""At hame, as I tell't ye before."

"Yo' mean yo' left him there?" M'Adams' fingers twitched.

"He's where I left him."

James Moore shrugged his shoulders. And the other began:

"When did yer dog leave ye?"

"When the Killer came past."

"Ye wad say ye missed him then?"

"I say what I mean."

"Ye say he went after the Killer. Noo the Killer was here," pointing to the dead sheep. "Was your dog here, too?""If he had been he'd been here still."

"Onless he went over the Fall!"

"That was the Killer, yo' fule."

"Or your dog."

"There was only one beneath me. I felt him."

"Just so," said M'Adam, and laughed. The other's brow contracted.

"An' that was a big un," he said slowly. The little man stopped his cackling.

"There ye lie," he said, smoothly. "He was small."They looked one another full in the eyes.

"That's a matter of opinion," said the Mas-. ter.

"It's a matter of fact," said the other. The two stared at one another, silent and stern, each trying to fathom the other's soul; then they turned again to the brink of the. Fall. Beneath them, plain to see, was the splash and furrow in the shingle marking the Killer's line of retreat. They looked at one another again, and then each departed the way he had come to give his version of the story.

'If Th' Owd Un had kept wi' me, I should Iha' had him."And-- "I tell ye I did have him, but James Moore :~~ulled me aff.

Strange, too, his dog not bein' --'him!"