t Lieutenant Allison would have been
killed!"

The rest looked at each other in silent awe at _this_ marvelous working
of fate! In a dim, groping way they all felt the touch of an unseen,
mighty hand in their affairs, guiding them this way or that as it chose,
regardless of their own plans or intentions.

"It was really Oh-Pshaw that saved his life," said Gladys, "because she
made the mistake that made us lose."

"And I was so hateful about it, and said such mean things!" said Agony
contritely. "I take it all back, Oh-Pshaw. It was the luckiest thing you
ever did to get rattled then."

Oh-Pshaw smiled forgivingly and all was serene between the twins once
more.

While the Winnebago tongues were wagging busily in Oh-Pshaw's room and
Lieutenant Allison was lying quite comfortable in bed in the big square
bedroom of the Wing home, where he had been carried when brought in from
the woods the night before with a ragged cut in his left temple and a
fractured arm, Sahwah, breathless with wonder at the strange new thing
that had come into her life, fled from the chattering girls and went
wandering by herself in the silence of the woods, where she could think
and dream undisturbed.

So preoccupied was she that she had passed out of the gate of Carver
House without even noticing Kaiser Bill, who had broken out of his
confines and was pulling the honeysuckle vine off the fence. The Kaiser
stopped pulling for a moment as she came out and eyed her warily, on
guard for a well-aimed stone, but she passed by unheeding. It betokened
deep abstraction indeed when Sahwah ignored the depredations of Kaiser
Bill. The Kaiser executed a defiant caper under her very nose and then
returned blandly to his vine pulling, sending a suspicious look after
her from time to time as she passed down the hill.

Through the troubles that had overtaken Carver House, Kaiser Bill had
gained a temporary reprieve. In the excitement over Nyoda's going away
he had been forgotten entirely for a whole week, and of course nothing
would be done about his execution until she returned. Kaiser Bill was
making the most of his reprieve by breaking bounds every day and
damaging property to his heart's content.

But not even Kaiser Bill in mischief could hold Sahwah's attention now.
She walked on in the golden afternoon sunshine, her heart attuned to the
song of the wild thrush that came pouring out of the stillness of the
woods. She sought her own favorite haunt, a