"Oh!" cried Ruth, but before she could say more, Mr. Cameron went on:

"We'll all be over in the morning. I hope you have not taken cold,
or overtaxed your strength, I must go and tell Helen. She has been
frightened half to death about you. Goodnight."

He hung up the receiver, leaving Ruth in rather a disturbed state of
mind. The newspaper clipping that had dropped out of the old wallet
the strange boy had carried, was the account of the shooting affair.
Mention was made in it about the very frequent mistakes made in the
hunting season--mistakes which often end in the death of one hunter
by the hand of another.

It said that 'Lias Hatfield and his younger brother, Fred, had had a
quarrel and then gone hunting, each taking a different direction. The
younger boy had ensconced himself just under the brink of a steep
bank at the bottom of which was Rolling River, a swift and deep
stream. His brother's story was that he had come up facing this
place, having started a young buck not half a mile away. He thought
he heard the buck stamping, and blowing, and then saw what he thought
was the animal behind a fringe of bushes at the top of this steep
river bank.

The hunter blazed away, and heard a dreadful scream, a rolling and
thrashing in the brush, and a splash in the river. He ran forward and
found his brother's old gun and tippet. There was blood on the
bushes. The supposition was that Fred Hatfield had been shot and had
rolled into the swift-flowing river. 'Lias had given himself up to
the authorities and there seemed some doubt in the minds of the
people of Scarboro as to whether the shooting had been an accident.