“Come, now, that’s enough of that. This ain’t any time for blubbering. You be off yonder way and I’ll go this. Move, now, and don’t leave any tracks behind you.”

Potter started on a trot that quickly increased to a run. The half-breed stood looking after him. He muttered:

“If he’s as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as he had the look of being, he won’t think of the knife till he’s gone so far he’ll be afraid to come back after it to such a place by himself⁠—chicken-heart!”

Two or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse, the lidless coffin, and the open grave were under no inspection but the moon’s. The stillness was complete again, too.