about his
head, and with a quick twist of his powerful wrist had his prisoner
securely gagged. Throwing him violently to the ground, he tied the
sack in a hard knot, and, despite all struggles, dragged him back to
where Allan lay. Here he relighted the lantern, and, cutting part of
the blanket into strips with his pocket-knife, securely tied his
captive hand and foot. At first the prisoner tried to talk, but he
could not speak intelligibly through the closely-drawn sack, and
presently he gave up and lay in silence in the wet grass. And again
the leaden night wore on, broken only by occasional gurglings in the
throat of Allan, or futile struggles by the prisoner. Harris felt
little curiosity concerning the identity of the man in gags before
him, or the victim of Allan's gun in the doorway. They were absolute
strangers to him, and he even feared that if he should look into the
face of the one that still lived his anger over the assault upon
Allan would burst all bounds and he would kill his victim on the
spot. He was slowly forced to the conclusion that Riles and Gardiner
had also met with foul play, and that no help was now to be expected
from that quarter. The light rain had drifted past, and bright stars
gleamed through great rents in the shattered clouds. The gibbous
moon, too, looked down, and its cold light intensified the shadows.
The night grew colder, and Harris spread his own outer garments upon
his son, and at last lay down with Allan in his arms that he might
communicate heat from his body to the struggling frame so sorely
robbed of blood. And even in his distress and his terrific fear for
Allan there came some reminiscence of old delight at the feel of the
boy's limbs against his, and fleet-footed memory ran back again to
the childhood of Allan. But on its way it met the childhood of
Beulah, and conjured up the mother-face leaning in tenderness over
the sick-beds of infancy. And John Harris buried his face in the
heaving chest of his child and wept in his grief and loneliness.

Just as the first bars of grey in the eastern sky proclaimed
approaching dawn, the sound of horse's hoofs came distinctly up the
valley. Harris drew himself into a sitting posture, and listened.
Allan was still breathing, and apparently with less effort than
earlier in the night. The sound of the horse came nearer and nearer.
At last it was in the road just below, and a moment later would have
passed by had not Harris called out. His