he said.

"I'll give him two hours," said Raines, "and not a minute more."

Hanscom glanced at Helen and was glad of the fact that, being surrounded
by her women sympathizers, she had seen and heard nothing of the enemy's
new attack upon him.

IX

Helen and the ranger left the room together, and no sooner were they
free from the crowd than she turned to him with a smile which expressed
affection as well as gratitude.

"How much we owe to you and Dr. Carmody, and what a sorry interruption
we've caused in your work."

He protested that the interruption had been entirely a pleasure, but
she, while knowing nothing of his impending arrest, was fully aware that
he had undergone actual hardship for her sake, and her plan for hurrying
away seemed at the moment most ungracious. Yet this, after all, was
precisely what she now decided to do.

"Is there time for us to catch that eastbound express?" she asked.

Her words chilled his heart with a quick sense of impending loss, but he
looked at his watch. "Yes, if it should happen to be late, as it
generally is." Then, forgetting his parole, in a voice which expressed
more of his pain than he knew, he said: "I hate to see you go. Can't you
wait another day?"

His pleading touched a vibrant spot in her, but she was resolved. "I
have an almost insane desire to get away," she hurriedly explained. "I
am afraid of this country. Its people scare me!" A quick change in her
voice indicated a new thought. "I hope the Kitsongs will not continue in
pursuit of you."

"They won't have a chance to do that," he replied, gloomily. "I'm
leaving, too. I have resigned."

"Oh no! You mustn't do that."

"I turned in my papers this morning." He suddenly recalled his parole.
"I shall soon be free--I hope--to go anywhere and do anything--and I'd
like to keep in touch with you--if you'll let me."

She evaded him. "I shall be very sorry if we are the cause of your
leaving the service."

"Well, you are--but not in the way you mean. You have made me
discontented with myself, that's all, and I'm going to get out of the
tall timber and see if I can't do something in the big world. I want to
win your respect."

"I respect you now. Your work as a forester seems to me very fine and
honorable."

"The work is all right, but I'm leaving it, just the same. I can't see a
future in it. Fact is, I begin to long for a home; that lunch in your
cabin started me on a new line of thought."

The memory