od fire and hot food and drink changed the aspect of their condition
as far as comfort went. And Jennie lay down to sleep. For Duane,
however, there must be vigilance. This cabin was no hiding-place. The
rain fell harder all the time, and the wind changed to the north. "It's
a norther, all right," muttered Duane. "Two or three days." And he felt
that his extraordinary luck had not held out. Still one point favored
him, and it was that travelers were not likely to come along during the
storm. Jennie slept while Duane watched. The saving of this girl meant
more to him than any task he had ever assumed. First it had been partly
from a human feeling to succor an unfortunate woman, and partly a motive
to establish clearly to himself that he was no outlaw. Lately, however,
had come a different sense, a strange one, with something personal and
warm and protective in it.

As he looked down upon her, a slight, slender girl with bedraggled dress
and disheveled hair, her face, pale and quiet, a little stern in sleep,
and her long, dark lashes lying on her cheek, he seemed to see her
fragility, her prettiness, her femininity as never before. But for him
she might at that very moment have been a broken, ruined girl lying
back in that cabin of the Blands'. The fact gave him a feeling of his
importance in this shifting of her destiny. She was unharmed, still
young; she would forget and be happy; she would live to be a good
wife and mother. Somehow the thought swelled his heart. His act,
death-dealing as it had been, was a noble one, and helped him to hold
on to his drifting hopes. Hardly once since Jennie had entered into his
thought had those ghosts returned to torment him.

To-morrow she would be gone among good, kind people with a possibility
of finding her relatives. He thanked God for that; nevertheless, he felt
a pang.

She slept more than half the day. Duane kept guard, always alert,
whether he was sitting, standing, or walking. The rain pattered steadily
on the roof and sometimes came in gusty flurries through the door.
The horses were outside in a shed that afforded poor shelter, and they
stamped restlessly. Duane kept them saddled and bridled.

About the middle of the afternoon Jennie awoke. They cooked a meal
and afterward sat beside the little fire. She had never been, in his
observation of her, anything but a tragic figure, an unhappy girl, the
farthest removed from serenity and poise. That characteristic capacity
for