beds before daybreak. Shall we try it?"

The boy wavered, struggling between his desire for the chase and
his fear of Fletcher.

"Of course, if you're afraid--" added Christopher slowly.

"I'm not afraid," broke out Will angrily. "I'm not afraid and you
know it. You be at the store by eleven, and I'll get out of the
window and join you. Grandpa will never know, and if he
does--well, I'll settle him!"

"Then be quick about it," was Christopher's retort, and as the
boy ran out into the darkness he followed him to the door and
stood gazing moodily down upon the yellow circle that his lantern
cast on the bare ground. A massive fatigue oppressed him, and his
hands and feet had become like leaden weights. There was a
heaviness, too, about his head, and his eyeballs burned as if he
had looked too long at a bright light. At the moment he felt like
a man who, being bound upon a wheel, is whirled so rapidly around
that he is dazed by the continuous revolutions. What did it all
mean, anyway--the boy, Fletcher, himself, and the revenge which
he now saw so clearly before him? Was it a great divine judgment
or a great human cruelty?

Question as he would, the wheel still turned, and he knew that
for good or evil he was bound upon it until the end.