the chaplain told that Christmas Eve, and he dropped his eyes by and by,
so as not to see it again, and rode on until the light shone in his
face.

Then he led his horse up a little ravine and hitched it among the snowy
holly and rhododendrons, and slipped toward the light. There was a dog
somewhere, of course; and like a thief he climbed over the low
rail-fence and stole through the tall snow-wet grass until he leaned
against an apple-tree with the sill of the window two feet above the
level of his eyes.

Reaching above him, he caught a stout limb and dragged himself up to a
crotch of the tree. A mass of snow slipped softly to the earth. The
branch creaked above the light wind; around the corner of the house a
dog growled and he sat still.

He had waited three long years and he had ridden two hard nights and
lain out two cold days in the woods for this.

And presently he reached out very carefully, and noiselessly broke leaf
and branch and twig until a passage was cleared for his eye and for the
point of the pistol that was gripped in his right hand.

A woman was just disappearing through the kitchen door, and he peered
cautiously and saw nothing but darting shadows. From one corner a shadow
loomed suddenly out in human shape. Buck saw the shadowed gesture of an
arm, and he cocked his pistol. That shadow was his man, and in a moment
he would be in a chair in the chimney corner to smoke his pipe,
maybe--his last pipe.