of the platform with her,
here on the dark side where nobody would notice them, and they could
decide what was to be done next.

He dismounted slowly, stumblingly, gained the edge of the platform, and
there sat with drooping head. Judith tied the two animals and ran to sit
beside him.

"Ye ain't goin' to faint air ye?" she asked anxiously. "Lean on me,
Creed. I wish't I knew what to do for ye!"

The young fellow, half unconscious indeed, put his head down upon her
shoulder with a great shuddering sigh.

"I'll be better in a minute, dear," he whispered. "I reckon I got a
little tired--riding so far."

For some time Judith sat there, Creed's head on her shoulder, the black
night all about them, the little lighted station empty save for the
clicking of the telegraph instrument, and the footsteps of the station
master who had opened up for the midnight train. She was desperately
anxious and at a loss which way to turn. And yet through all her being
there rolled a mighty undernote of joy. As to the dweller on the coast
the voice of the sea is the undertone to all the sounds of man's
activities, so beneath all her virginal hesitancies, her half terror of
what she had done, surged and sang the knowledge that Creed was hers, her
avowed lover. She, Judith, had him here safe; she had brought him away
out of the mountains, from those who would have harmed him--and those who
would have loved him too well. In all her plannings up to this time she
had never quite been able to see clearly what should come after getting
Creed down into the valley. Over her stormily beating heart now there
rose and fell a little packet of bills, savings above necessary
expenditures on the farm, and her own modest expenses, savings which had
been accumulating since Uncle Jephthah rented the place, and now amounted
to some hundreds of dollars. These she had put in the bosom of her frock
when she set out on this enterprise, with, as she now realised, the
vaguest expectation of ever returning to her uncle's house.

"Creed," she whispered, "air ye better?"

"Yes," responded her charge, "yes--I'm better." But he made no movement
to raise his head, and with eyes long accustomed to darkness she was able
to see that his lids were still closed.

"Creed," she began again, "what shall I do for you now? Must I go ask at
the hotel will they give you a room? Have you--have you got money with
you?"

Bonbright roused himself.

"I'm all right now," he said