waiting for us; but at the distance we could not determine whether he
intended to surrender quietly or to fight. Ajax adjusted his glasses,
and glanced through them. Then, with an exclamation, he handed them to
me.

"Kin ye make him out, boys?" asked our neighbour.

"Yes," said I, giving back the glasses to Ajax. He handed them in
silence to old man Dumble. Then, instinctively, both our right hands
went to our belts. We were not quite sure what a father might do.

He did what should have been expected--and avoided. He dropped the
binoculars. Then he turned to us, trembling, livid--a scarecrow of the
man we knew;

"It's my boy," he said hoarsely. "And I thought he was the best boy in
the county. Oh God!"

A minute may have passed, not more. One guesses that in that brief
time the unhappy father saw clearly the inevitable consequences of his
own roguery and sharp practice. He had sowed, broadcast, innumerable,
nameless little frauds; he reaped a big crime. I looked across those
dreary alkaline plains and out of the lovely blue haze beyond I seemed
to see the Dumbles' spring wagon rolling to church. Mrs. Dumble's
pale, impassive face was turned to the bleak plains. At last I read
her aright, that quiet woman of silence. She knew the father of her
children from the outer rind to the inmost core. I thought of the
pretty daughters, who did not know. And out yonder stood the son.

Ajax beckoned me aside. We whispered together for a moment or two.