Page:Peak and Prairie (1894).pdf/162

 The gaunt horse had taken a step forward and was sniffing at that heap on the ground, mouthing the limp trousers: a few wisps of hay had clung to them. Rankin watched the weird scene. He knew that that was a dead man before him; nothing could make that surer.

He tried to lift the body and carry it toward the house; he could not do it. It was not the weight, it was the repulsion that lamed him.

He stalked to the cabin and flung open the door. The woman crouched in a corner with her six children about her; seven pitiful scared faces were lifted to his. He stepped in and closed the door behind him.

"Dennis Rumpety is dead," he stated, in a hard, unnatural voice. It seemed to him as if those awful words must echo round the globe, rousing all the powers of the land against him, striking terror to the hearts at home.

The woman glanced about her with wandering eyes. Then she shook her head.

"Dinnis Rumpety? Sure he'll niver be dead!"

"I tell you Dennis Rumpety is dead. I have killed him!"

"You!" she shrieked. "The saints preserve ye!"