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For nearly a minute Stevenson thus stood and looked at them in silence. I observed that, after the first glance at him, the two boys stared round the hut and hung their heads without looking at him again. Not so Peel. As his eyes met the superintendent's I noticed that they became fixed. The pupils, before dilated, suddenly contracted; the lids, previously wide open, half closed, and a spasm seemed to pass over him. His head sank lower in the folds of his rug, but never for an instant did he remove his glance from Stevenson's face. He saw something there which made him suspect that his villainy was known, and that he had run into a trap; and the second danger counteracted the panic caused by the first.

'Bobby Peel,' said Stevenson, 'where gun belongin' to white fellow you kill?'

At this question the two youngest absolutely grovelled in the ashes, and seemed to give themselves up for lost. Peel did not answer, but drew his cloak over his head, and gathered himself together beneath it, as if he had resigned himself to his fate.