Count it oot, Ellen, count it oot! Here's the calendar almanac. Noo
we'll ha'e it. It's twa weeks since Hester an' I left an' she got the
letter the day before that, an' that's fifteen days--"

"An' it takes twa weeks mair for a boat to cross the ocean, an' that
gives fourteen days mair before that letter to Hester was written, an'
three days fra' Liverpool here, pits it back to seventeen days,--an'
fifteen days--mak's thirty-two days,--an' here' it's nearin' the last
o' June--"

"Jean! Whan Hester's frien' was writin' that letter to Hester, Richard
was just sailin' fra France! Thank the Lord!"

"Thank the Lord!" ejaculated her sister, fervently. "Ellen, it's you
for havin' the head to think it oot, thank the Lord!" And now the dear
soul wept again for very gladness.

Ellen folded her hands in her lap complaisantly and nodded her head.
"Ye've a good head, yersel', Jean, but ye aye let yersel' get excitet.
Noo, it's only for us to bide in peace an' quiet an' know that the
earth is the Lord's an' the fullness thereof until we hear fra'
Hester."

"An' may the Lord pit it in her hairt to write soon!"

While the good Craigmiles of Aberdeen were composing themselves to the
hopeful view that Ellen's discovery of the date had given them, Larry
Kildene and Amalia were seated in a car, luxurious for that day,
speeding eastward over the desert across which Amalia and her father
and mother had fled in fear and privation so short a time before. She
gazed through the plate-glass windows and watched the quivering heat
waves rising from the burning sands. Well she knew those terrible
plains! She saw the bleaching bones of animals that had fallen by the
way, even as their own had fallen, and her eyes filled. She remembered
how Harry King had come to them one day, riding on his yellow
horse--riding out of the setting sun toward them, and how his
companionship had comforted them and his courage and help had saved
them more than once,--and how, had it not been for him, their bones,
too, might be lying there now, whitening in the heat. Oh, Harry, Harry
King! She who had once crossed those very plains behind a jaded team
now felt that the rushing train was crawling like a snail.

Larry Kildene, seated facing her and watching her, leaned forward and
touched her hand. "We're going at an awful pace," he said. "To think
of ever crossing these plains with the speed of the wind!"

She smiled a wan smile. "Yes, that is so. But it still is