d on getting
well," when he awoke, twelve hours later. Strength was flowing in a
steady tide back into his body long before Barbara's knees would again
bear her weight. For she had squandered her endurance without counting
the cost, and she paid the full penalty. She lay three days and three
nights railing at her weakness before she could get up at all; and even
then Cecile, her little maid, clucked discreetly at the dark circles
beneath her eyes.

Joe was several days absent on that errand which had all but emptied
the seething town of men; he returned the same day Barbara was about
again, forced to admit that Harrigan and Fallon and Shayne had won
clear. And there was nothing left to the disgruntled groups which
straggled in behind him, save tall and heated conjecture. Some said
that they must have managed to cross the border; others maintained that
they had found sanctuary in the lumber-camps of the lake country to the
west, but no matter which guess was right the net result stood
unchanged. For it is upon the one who runs away that the blame is
always laid, and Archibald Wickersham knew fully as well as did Caleb
and Allison and Fat Joe that, without Harrigan, they could not hope to
touch him. Harrigan had disappeared from the ken of men, and
Wickersham delayed only until his departure could no longer be
construed as flight. Then one evening modestly he boarded a train.

After she had rested Barbara proved almost humbly amenable to reason;
until it was best for her to go to him, she would wait as patiently as
she was able. And in the meantime, in a luxury of loneliness, wisely
the girl spent her days out of doors, climbing oftenest to that
hill-top where they had stood together, in the snow, the night of Miss
Sarah's Christmas party. From that point she could see Morrison and
the river basin, and even the steam that jetted ever and again from the
whistles of the engines clattering over his railroad which lanced into
the north.

But no discordant note of haste could reach her ears from so great a
distance. That whole vast panorama, suggestive least of all of
violence, lay blanketed in a sleepy silence that matched the subdued
security of her mood.

Miss Sarah ordered a week of unbroken quiet and rest for her patient;
and Steve, and not Barbara, proved the difficult one to manage during
that period. For with returning strength there came to him
recollection of many things which required his attention.