Living, as they did, far from all organised justice, there was in them a rough sense of responsibility for each other which is not found in townsmen.
Trenholme shortly made out that they had decided that two of them should help him to guard the station that night, and were only disputing as to who should be allotted for the purpose.
"It isn't at all necessary," said Trenholme.
"We sink," said Turrif, with his deliberate smile, "it will be best; for if you have not been wandering in your mind, some one else's body has been wandering." Trenholme went back to his station in the not unpleasant company of two sturdy farmers, one young and vivacious, the other old and slow.

They found the place just as he had left it.

The coffin was empty, save for the sweet-scented cushion of roughly covered pine tassels on which the body of the gaunt old Cameron had been laid to rest.
The three men sat by the stove in the other room.

The smoke from their pipes dimmed the light of the lamp.

The quiet sounds of their talk and movements never entirely took from them the consciousness of the large dark silence that lay without.