the hill. That night, going back under the stars, Ward stumbled over a
body, and stooping, saw the smile still on the boy's face, and the
carbine clutched in his hand. But for the hole through the boyish
brow, the eyes might still have been laughing.




CHAPTER III


A few years ago, in the room of the great mahogany table, with its
clean blotting pad, its writing tablet, and its superb rose rising
from a green vase in the midst of the shining unlittered expanse,
there was a plain, heavy mahogany wainscoting reaching chin-high to
the average man. A few soft-toned pictures adorned the dull gray walls
above the wainscoting, and directly over a massive desk that never was
seen open hung a framed letter. The letter was written on blue-lined
paper in red pokeberry ink. At the top of the letter was the
advertisement of a hotel, done in quaint, old-fashioned, fancy script
with many curly-cues and printers' ornaments. The advertisement set
forth that the Thayer House at Sycamore Ridge was "First class in
every particular," and that "Especial attention was paid to transient
custom." On a line in the right-hand corner the reader was notified
that the tavern was founded by the Emigrant Aid Society, and balancing
this line, in the left-hand corner, were these words: "The only
livery-stable west of Lawrence." John Barclay's eyes have read it a
thousand times, and yet he always smiled when he scanned the letter
that followed the advertisement. The letter read:--