to be done and the manner of its doing. Twenty-two miles out they
would reach the coal-mine station of Wardlaw, a few minutes ahead of the
Overland. Since all east-bound trains stopped at the coal-mines to coal
the engines, the way of escape would be open.

Something more than a wordless, space-devouring half-hour beyond this,
Blount applied the brakes and dropped his passenger at the rear of the
small iron-roofed building which served as the railroad station for the
coal-mines. Far to the rear on the twenty-two-mile tangent the headlight
of the coming train showed like a blazing star low on the western
horizon.

"Go and blacken your face and hands at one of the slack dumps and pass
yourself for a miner quitting his job," was Blount's parting suggestion;
but the hollow-eyed fugitive had a last word to say, too, and he said
it.

"I've been t' hell and back, as I told you, and 'twas f'r on'y th' wan
thing: give me your word, Evan Blount, that you'll chop th' damn' tree
down and let it lie where it falls! That's all I'm askin', this trip."

"You needn't lose any sleep worrying about that," was the curt reply;
and without waiting for the train arrival, Blount turned the car and
sent it racing on the way back to the city.

By all the tests he knew how to apply, he was little better than a dead
man when he returned the hired auto to the side-street garage and made
his halting way around to the hotel. He had long since given up the idea
of trying to see Blenkinsop. He knew that the editor would not be in his
office much before ten o'clock, and the two-hour wait was not to be
endured.

Clinging desperately to the single purpose of getting back to the
deserted room before his absence should be discovered, and weighed down
by a crushing sense of the immorality of the step he had just taken in
bargaining with a hunted criminal and in conniving at his escape, he
pressed on, pushing through the revolving doors and slipping once more
into the Saturday evening lobby throng. Edging around to the stair, he
took all the cautious steps in reverse; ascending first to his own room
to leave the rain-coat and the hat, and afterward feeling his way down
the servants' stair and through the lower corridor to the locked door in
his father's private suite.

Past this he had a hazy notion that part of him--the observing
part--stood aside and looked on while the other part slowly and
painfully struggled out of its clothes and into its pajama