nant Brant?"

He smiled back into her anxious eyes. "Nothing that soap and water and
a few days' retirement will not wholly remedy. My wounds are entirely
upon the surface. Shall I conduct you to him?"

She bowed, apparently forgetful that one of her hands yet remained
imprisoned in his grasp. "If I may go, yes. I told Mrs. Herndon I
should remain here if I could be of the slightest assistance."

They passed up the staircase side by side, exchanging no further
speech. Once she glanced furtively at his face, but its very calmness
kept the words upon her lips unuttered. At the door they encountered
Mrs. Guffy, her honest eyes red from weeping.

"This is Miss Gillis, Mrs. Guffy," explained Brant. "She wishes to see
Mr. Hampton if it is possible."

"Sure an' she can thet. He's been askin' after her, an' thet pretty
face would kape any man in gud spirits, I 'm thinkin'. Step roight in,
miss."

She held the door ajar, but Naida paused, glancing back at her
motionless companion, a glint of unshed tears showing for the first
time in her eyes. "Are you not coming also?"

"No, Miss Naida. It is best for me to remain without, but my heart
goes with you."

Then the door closed between them.

CHAPTER XVI

THE RESCUE OF MISS SPENCER

While Hampton lingered between life and death, assiduously waited upon
by both Naida and Mrs. Guffy, Brant nursed his burns, far more serious
than he had at first supposed, within the sanctity of his tent, longing
for an order to take him elsewhere, and dreading the possibility of
again having to encounter this girl, who remained to him so perplexing
an enigma. Glencaid meanwhile recovered from its mania of lynch-law,
and even began exhibiting some faint evidences of shame over what was
so plainly a mistake. And the populace were also beginning to exhibit
no small degree of interest in the weighty matters which concerned the
fast-culminating love affairs of Miss Spencer.

Almost from her earliest arrival the extensive cattle and mining
interests of the neighborhood became aggressively arrayed against each
other; and now, as the fierce personal rivalry between Messrs. Moffat
and McNeil grew more intense, the breach perceptibly widened. While
the infatuation of the Reverend Mr. Wynkoop for this same fascinating
young lady was plainly to be seen, his chances in the race were not
seriously regarded by the more active partisans upon either side. As
the stage driver explai