. The spirit that had upheld her through all the long, dark hours
had reached its fulfilment.

She lay on a couch in a small room curtained off from another, the
latter large and light, and from which came a sound of low voices. She
heard the quick tread of men; a door opened.

"Lee, I congratulate you. A narrow escape!" exclaimed a deep voice, with
something sharp, authoritative in it.

"General Lodge, it was indeed a narrow shave for me," replied another
voice, low and husky.

Allie slowly sat up, with the dreamy waiting abstraction less strong.
Her father, Allison Lee, and General Lodge, Neale's old chief, were
there in the other room.

"Neale almost killed Durade! Broke him! Cut him all up!" said the
general, with agitation. "I had it from McDermott, one of my spikers--a
reliable man.... Neale was shot--perhaps cut, too.... But he doesn't
seem to know it."

Allie sprang up, transfixed and thrilling.

"Neale almost killed--him!" echoed Allison Lee, hoarsely. Then followed
a sound of a chair falling.

"Indeed, Allison, it's true," broke in a strange voice. "The street's
full of men--all talking--all stirred up."

Other men entered the room.

"Is Neale here?" queried General Lodge, sharply.

"They're trying to hold him up--in the office. The boys want to pat him
on the back.... Durade was not liked," replied some one.

"Is Neale badly hurt?"

"I don't know. He looked it. He was all bloody."

"Colonel Dillon, did you see Neale?" went on the sharp, eager voice.

"Yes. He seemed dazed--wild. Probably badly hurt. Yet he moved steadily.
No one could stop him," answered another strange voice.

"Ah! here comes McDermott!" exclaimed General Lodge. Allie's ears
throbbed to a slow, shuffling, heavy tread. Her consciousness received
the fact of Neale's injury, but her heart refused to accept it as
perilous. God could not mock her faith by a last catastrophe.

"Sandy--you've seen Neale?"

Allie loved this sharp, keen voice for its note of dread. "Shure.
B'gorra, yez couldn't hilp seein' him. He's as big as a hill an' his
shirt's as red as Casey's red wan. I wint to give him the little gun
wot Durade pulled on him. Dom' me! he looked roight at me an' niver seen
me," replied the Irishman.

"Lee, you will see Neale?" queried General Lodge. There was a silence.

"No," presently came a cold reply. "It is not necessary. He saved
me--injury perhaps. I am grateful. I'll reward him."

"How?" rang General Lodge's