dle of a long stretch of road that
skirted the river through dense woods. At any time a motor might come
along; and then again, one might not arrive for hours. No dependence
could be put on this. There was no telephone for a long distance back;
and even had one been near he would not have ventured to leave the girl.

Could he carry her back to Fort Clinton, the last settlement he had
passed through? Impossible! No man's strength could stand such a
tremendous task. And even had it been within Gabriel's means, he would
have chosen otherwise. For most of all the girl needed rest and quiet
and immediate care. To bear her all that distance in his arms might
produce serious, even fatal results.

"No!" he decided. "I must do what I can for her, here and now, and trust
to luck to send help in an auto, down this road!"

His next thought was that bandages and wraps would be needed for her cut
and to make her a bed. Instantly he remembered the shawl and the big
auto-robe that he had seen caught among the trees.

"I must have those at once!" he realized. "When the machine went over
the edge, they were thrown out, just as the girl was. A miracle she
wasn't carried down, with the car, and crushed or burned to death down
there by the river, with that poor devil of a chauffeur!"

Laying her down in the soft grass along the wall, he ran back to where
the wraps were, and, detaching them from the branches, quickly regained
the road once more.

"Now for the old sugar-house in the maple-grove," said he. "Poor
shelter, but the best to be had. Thank heaven it's fair weather, and
warm!"

The task was awkward, to carry both the girl and the bulky robes, but
Gabriel was equal to it She had by now regained some measure of
rationality; and though very pale and shaken, manifested her nerve and
courage by no longer weeping or asking questions.

Instead, she lay in his arms, eyes closed, with the blood stiffening on
her face; and let him bear her whither he would. She seemed to sense his
strength and mastery, his tender care and complete command of the
situation. And, like a hurt and tired child, outworn and suffering, she
yielded herself, unquestioningly, to his ministrations.

Thus Gabriel, the discharged, blacklisted, outcast rebel and
proletarian, bore in his arms of mercy and compassion the only daughter
of old Isaac Flint, his enemy, Flint the would-be master of the world.

Thus he bore the woman who had been betrothed to "Tiger" Wal