“And I said coming along,” interrupted Union Mills, with equally reviving mendacity, ‘Like as not he’s hangin’ round yer and lyin’ low just to give us a surprise.’  He! ho!”

“He’s gone for good, and he left that rifle here on purpose,” said the Left Bower in a low voice, taking the weapon almost tenderly in his hands.

“Drop it, then!” said the Right Bower.  The voice was that of his brother, but suddenly changed with passion.  The two other partners drew back in alarm.

“I’ll not leave it here for the first comer,” said the Left Bower, calmly, “because we’ve been fools and he too.  It’s too good a weapon for that.”

“Drop it, I say!” said the Right Bower, with a savage stride towards him.

The younger brother brought the rifle to a half charge with a white face but a steady eye.

“Stop where you are!” he said collectedly.  “Don’t row with me, because you haven’t either the grit to stick to your ideas or the heart to confess them wrong.  We’ve followed your lead, and—­here we are!  The camp’s broken up—­the Old Man’s gone—­and we’re going.  And as for the d——­d rifle”—­

“Drop it, do you hear!” shouted the Right Bower, clinging to that one idea with the blind pertinacity of rage and a losing cause.  “Drop it!”

The Left Bower drew back, but his brother had seized the barrel with both hands.  There was a momentary struggle, a flash through the half-lighted cabin, and a shattering report.  The two men fell back from each other; the rifle dropped on the floor between them.

The whole thing was over so quickly that the other two partners had not had time to obey their common impulse to separate them, and consequently even now could scarcely understand what had passed.  It was over so quickly that the two actors themselves walked back to their places, scarcely realizing their own act.

A dead silence followed.  The Judge and Union Mills looked at each other in dazed astonishment, and then nervously set about their former habits, apparently in that fatuous belief common to such natures, that they were ignoring a painful situation.  The Judge drew the barrel towards him, picked up the cards, and began mechanically to “make a patience,” on which Union Mills gazed with ostentatious interest, but with eyes furtively conscious of the rigid figure of the Right Bower by the chimney and the abstracted face of the Left Bower at the door.  Ten minutes had passed in this occupation, the Judge and Union Mills conversing in the furtive whispers of children unavoidably but fascinatedly present at a family quarrel, when a light step was heard upon the crackling brushwood outside, and the bright panting face of the Old Man appeared upon the threshold.  There was a shout of joy; in another moment he was half-buried in the bosom of the Right Bower’s shirt, half-dragged into the lap of the Judge, upsetting the barrel, and completely encompassed by the Left Bower and Union Mills.  With the enthusiastic utterance of his name the spell was broken.