get them away early. When he had bundled them
into a large carryall, and watched them drive away through the storm,
he returned for a minute to the waiting room for his overcoat. He was
surprised to hear the sound of the child's voice in the supper room, and
the door being ajar, he could see quite distinctly that she was seated
at the table, with a plate full of sweets before her, while Colonel
Starbottle, with his back to the door, was sitting opposite to her, his
shoulders slightly bowed as he eagerly watched her. It seemed to Mr.
Hamlin that it was the close of an emotional interview, for Pansy's
voice was broken, partly by sobs, and partly, I grieve to say, by the
hurried swallowing of the delicacies before her. Yet, above the beating
of the storm outside, he could hear her saying,--

"Yes! I promise to be good--(sob)--and to go with Mrs.
Pyecroft--(sob)--and to try to like another guardian--(sob)--and not to
cry any more--(sob)--and--oh, please, DON'T YOU DO IT EITHER!"

But here Mr. Hamlin slipped out of the room and out of the house, with
a rather grave face. An hour later, when the colonel drove up to the
Pyecrofts' door with Pansy, he found that Mr. Pyecroft was slightly
embarrassed, and a figure, which, in the darkness, seemed to resemble
Mr. Hamlin's, had just emerged from the door as he entered.

Yet the sun was not up on Burnt Ridge earlier than Mr. Hamlin. The storm
of the night before had blown itself out; a few shreds of mist hung
in the valleys from the Ridge, that lay above coldly reddening. Then a
breeze swept over it, and out of the dissipating mist fringe Mr. Hamlin
saw two black figures, closely buttoned up like himself, emerge, which
he recognized as Beeswinger and Wynyard, followed by their seconds.
But the colonel came not, Hamlin joined the others in an animated
confidential conversation, attended by a watchful outlook for the
missing adversary. Five, ten minutes elapsed, and yet the usually prompt
colonel was not there. Mr. Hamlin looked grave; Wynyard and Beeswinger
exchanged interrogatory glances. Then a buggy was seen driving furiously
up the grade, and from it leaped Colonel Starbottle, accompanied by Dick
MacKinstry, his second, carrying his pistol case. And then--strangely
enough for men who were waiting the coming of an antagonist who was a
dead shot--they drew a breath of relief!

MacKinstry slightly preceded his principal, and the others could see
that Starbottle, though erect, wa