forerunner to the new day. It whirled the heavy smoke plumes into forms
of vanished ghosts, like the tortured figments of each man's conscience
who had done, and "left undone" that which it was forever too late to
amend.

The sheriff walked in.

"This boy says that old Charlie is gone." He stood with his broad hat
off, running his fingers nervously through his hair. "Gentlemen - I - I
must confess - I heard the poor man calling, but - "

"Mon, in an ancient book named 'Mr. Aesop, His Fables,' there was a tale
of the lad who cried 'wolf.' Many there are here who have read it. Come,
let us gae after poor Charlie."

In the first daylight they reached the tree with its gruesome burden.

"But - but," sputtered the keen-eyed little Irishman, "'Tis not Charlie
at all! 'Tis but an effigy dressed in Charlie's clothes and hung at the
Widow Schmitt's gate."

"As a warnin' to him frae some mutton-head lover of hers."

They ran as one man across the road to Charlie's cabin. It was empty.

"He was callin' 'Help'," said the round-eyed boy.

"Yes, we heard him," added the sheriff.

They had come up the road. They started back down the trail.