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The Way of a Man by Emerson Hough
page 46 of 356 (12%)

Then he said "Lizzie!" and opened wide his arms.

Presently he said, "Jack, lay my head down, please." I did so. He was
dead, there in the moon.

I straightened him, and put my coat across his face, and spurred back
down the road again and over the gate. But my mother already knew. She
met me at the hall, and her face was white.

"Jack," she said, "I know!"

Then the servants came, and we brought him home, and laid him in his own
great room, as the master of the house should lie when the end comes,
and arrayed him like the gentleman he was.

Now came that old wire-hair, Doctor Bond, his mane standing stiff and
gray over a gray face, down which tears rolled the first time known of
any man. He sent my mother away and called me to him. And then he told
me that in my father's back were three or four pierced wounds, no doubt
received from the sharp stubs of underbrushes when he fell. But this, he
said, could hardly have been the cause of death. He admitted that the
matter seemed mysterious to him.

Up to this time we had not thought of the cause of this disaster, nor
pondered upon motives, were it worse than accident. Now we began to
think. Doctor Bond felt in the pockets of my father's coat; and so for
the first time we found his account book and his wallets. Doctor Bond
and I at once went out and searched the saddle pockets my father had
carried. They were quite empty.
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