While she spoke, one of her hands was hanging loosely at her side
and the other was clenched tightly at her breast.

"What have you got there, mammy?" said Jason gently. She
hesitated, and at last held out her hand--in the palm lay a
misshapen bullet.

"Steve give me this--hit was the one that got him, he said. He
said mebbe you boys could tell whichever one's gun hit come from."

Both looked at the piece of battered, blood-stained lead with
fascinated horror until Gray, with a queer little smile, took it
from her hand, for he knew, what Jason did not, that the night
before they had used guns of a different calibre, and now his
heart and brain worked swiftly and to a better purpose than he
meant, or would ever know.

"Come on, Jason, you and I will settle the question right now."

And, followed by mystified Jason, he turned from the porch and
started across the yard. Standing in the porch, the mother saw the
two youths stop at the fence, saw Gray raise his right hand high,
and then the piece of lead whizzed through the air and dropped
with hardly more than the splash of a raindrop in the centre of
the pond. The mother understood and she gulped hard. For a moment
the two talked and she saw them clasp hands. Then Gray turned
toward home and Jason came slowly back to the house. The boy said
nothing, the stony calm of the mother's face was unchanged--their
eyes met and that was all.