had been fired. She drew a long breath of relief, but it was caught up
in an apprehension of alarm. Her father, awakened from his sleep by the
shots, was hurriedly approaching her.

"What's up now, Salomy Jane?" he demanded excitedly.

"Nothin'," said the girl with an effort. "Nothin', at least, that I can
find." She was usually truthful because fearless, and a lie stuck in her
throat; but she was no longer fearless, thinking of HIM. "I wasn't abed;
so I ran out as soon as I heard the shots fired," she answered in return
to his curious gaze.

"And you've hid my gun somewhere where it can't be found," he said
reproachfully. "Ef it was that sneak Larrabee, and he fired them shots
to lure me out, he might have potted me, without a show, a dozen times
in the last five minutes."

She had not thought since of her father's enemy! It might indeed
have been he who had attacked Jack. But she made a quick point of the
suggestion. "Run in, dad, run in and find the gun; you've got no show
out here without it." She seized him by the shoulders from behind,
shielding him from the woods, and hurried him, half expostulating, half
struggling, to the house.

But there no gun was to be found. It was strange; it must have been
mislaid in some corner! Was he sure he had not left it in the barn? But
no matter now. The danger was over; the Larrabee trick had failed;
he must go to bed now, and in the morning they would make a search
together. At the same time she had inwardly resolved to rise before him
and make another search of the wood, and perhaps--fearful joy as she
recalled her promise!--find Jack alive and well, awaiting her!

Salomy Jane slept little that night, nor did her father. But towards
morning he fell into a tired man's slumber until the sun was well up the
horizon. Far different was it with his daughter: she lay with her face
to the window, her head half lifted to catch every sound, from the
creaking of the sun-warped shingles above her head to the far-off
moan of the rising wind in the pine trees. Sometimes she fell into a
breathless, half-ecstatic trance, living over every moment of the stolen
interview; feeling the fugitive's arm still around her, his kisses on
her lips; hearing his whispered voice in her ears--the birth of her new
life! This was followed again by a period of agonizing dread--that he
might even then be lying, his life ebbing away, in the woods, with her
name on his lips, and she resting here inactive,