Whenever a member of the Pickett family set his mind on the accomplishment of a certain object, he found no trouble too great, no task too arduous, no effort too severe to bring about the desired end. Abner Pickett set his mind on going home with Dannie. He knew that it would be impossible, that day, to drive back through the blockaded country roads, but that did not deter him. There was the railroad. It was possible that trains might be running on the Mooreville branch. By going on the cars twenty-five miles to Port Lenox, and thence down the river to Fisher’s Eddy, he might still be able to reach home that night. With this plan in view, he hurried along to the railroad station which, fortunately, was only a block from the court-house, and found that a train was scheduled to leave in twenty minutes. There was a lunch-room near by, and, remembering that Dannie had had nothing to eat since his early morning meal, he took the boy in and furnished him with food. Much as it went against Dannie’s inclination to eat, he found himself, after having partaken of his hurried meal, stronger and in better spirits than at any time since his arrival at Mooreville.

The conductor on the branch train could not promise them that they would reach Port Lenox that night. Indeed, it seemed, a dozen times, as though the cars would be stalled in the huge drifts of snow that were piled across the rails. But the wind had gone down, and the farther the train went the more clear track was found, and finally, at ten o’clock in the evening, they pulled triumphantly into Port Lenox. The train on the main line was four hours late, and they were just in time to catch it. It brought them to Fisher’s Eddy an hour before midnight. There, where Abner Pickett was known by every one, he had no trouble in procuring a team and a driver who was willing to make the attempt to get up through the drifted roads to Pickett’s Gap. It never once occurred to the persistent old man that it would be wiser, safer, and far more comfortable, both for him and Dannie, to remain at the village until morning. He had made up his mind to set his grandson down by the Pickett fireside that night, and no obstacle that had yet presented itself was sufficient to deter him from carrying out his purpose.

And, after all, the journey was not a hard one. It had ceased either to snow or to blow. The road up the hill was by no means impassable. It was on the sheltered side of the ridge, and had not felt the full fury of the storm. Through the gap there were no drifts; the horses could trot easily along; and, within an hour after midnight, the travellers were in their own home. That Aunt Martha was rejoiced to see them goes without saying. She was spending the night as she had spent the day, moving about the house in an agony of fear, censuring herself constantly for permitting her dear boy to leave home that morning in the face of the impending storm, awaiting news of him which she felt she must have, and yet dreaded to hear.

And here, at last, he was, unexpectedly home, safe and sound—ah, no! not quite safe and sound; his haggard face, his lustreless eyes, his pinched lips, his weak voice, all told a story of exhaustion, the cause of which Aunt Martha was not long in learning. She made ready, with all haste, some nourishing food and hot drink, and both the old man and the boy partook of it freely. After this Dannie dragged his tired feet up the dear old staircase to his own room, to his own bed, to his own sweet pillow, and not—he knelt to thank his God—not to the hard cot behind the grated door of a dreadful cell in the county jail. But he could not sleep. It was not the joy of being in his own home that drove slumber from his eyes, nor the memory of that awful journey through the drifting snow, nor yet his hard experience as a witness on the stand—it was the joyful, the dreadful, the bewildering thought that in one brief hour he had found a father who was more than all he had ever pictured him to be, a father who loved him and would have taken him and cared for him and rejoiced in him; and in the same brief hour had lost him, perhaps forever. It was sweet, indeed, to have found him, but it was terrible, very terrible, so soon to have lost him. And yet Dannie felt, he knew, that his proper place was with the grandfather who had been so good to him, so kind, so tender, so absolutely true.

In all the journey from Mooreville to the door of the Pickett homestead, Abner Pickett had never once spoken of his son, of the scene in the jury room, or of his triumphant possession of his grandson; and Dannie knew that these things must remain forbidden subjects, as all things pertaining to Charlie Pickett had been from his earliest recollection. But when Aunt Martha came in to bid him good night, the swelling tide of emotion that he had repressed for many hours, forced its way to his lips, and he put his arms around her neck and, amid many sobs, he told the story of the afternoon.

“I must have ’im, Aunt Martha,” he said at last; “I must have ’em both. Some way we must get Gran’pap to make up with ’im. I don’t know how it’s to be done; but some way we must do it. It’s terrible to let it go on like this; an’ Gran’pap’s so good to me—so good. Why won’t he forgive ’im, Aunt Martha? Why won’t he?”

“I don’t know, dearie. It’s his way. His father was so before him. It’s in the blood. All we can do, you and I, all we can do is to hope and to pray. Your grandfather will never yield to argument, nor to pleading. But I still have faith to believe that some time, in some way, the good God will bring about a reconciliation.”

“Thank you, Aunt Martha! I shall hope for it, and pray for it, and work for it, too, every day and all day until it comes.”

“And may it speedily come. There, now, you are very tired; go to sleep. Try to forget everything and go to sleep! You will feel better to-morrow. Good night!”

“Good night, Auntie!”

But when the morning came Dannie did not feel better. He slept late, yet he was not refreshed by his sleep. He was still tired, and his limbs dragged heavily as he went about the house. And, try as he might to forget it, that scene in the jury room the day before was ever present in his mind, a vivid picture of what he had found—and lost. Little by little the members of the household gathered from his lips the complete story of his journey through the storm. And while Abner Pickett smiled grimly at the boy’s pluck and will and mighty determination, since it proved him to be every inch a Pickett, Aunt Martha, moved by the lad’s tale of physical suffering, and touched by the moral energy that led him to endure it, turned her head away more than once to hide the tears that kept swelling to her eyes.

In the afternoon Gabriel came home. Of the equity trial he could give no news except that the evidence had been completed and a day fixed for the argument of counsel. But of Dannie’s journey through the storm, of his appearance in the court room, of his testimony on the witness stand, he never ceased to talk. For days and weeks it formed the sole topic of his discourse.

“It was wuth a year’s wages,” he declared many a time; “it was wuth a year’s wages not to ’a’ missed it. Ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say: ‘Truth is jest ez mighty an’ pervailin’ w’en it comes f’om the lips uv a child, ez w’en it comes f’om the mouth uv an archangel.’”

That night, when Dannie went to bed, his pulse was beating rapidly, his face was flushed, his head was very hot and heavy, and he was troubled with a hacking cough. He did not complain of any pain, except the soreness and constant aching of all his joints and muscles; but that was due, he thought, to the violent effort necessary to force his way through the drifts the day before. Aunt Martha saw, however, that beyond the mere fact of physical fatigue, the boy was ill; and she insisted upon putting him to bed in the large guest-chamber adjoining her own sleeping room on the ground floor, where a fire could be kept burning on the hearth, and she could give him constant attention by night and day. He demurred to this arrangement at first, but soon, through sheer weariness, he yielded; and it was not long after his head touched the pillow, before he was fast asleep. Later in the night he appeared to be troubled and restless, and turned constantly in his bed, asking frequently for water. Aunt Martha tried to allay his fever with some simple remedies, but she found that her efforts were in vain. Early in the morning she awoke Abner Pickett and told him that Dannie was ill. He dressed himself, came in and looked at the boy, and saw, at the first glance, that the services of a physician were needed.

Before daylight Gabriel was on his way to Port Lenox to summon Dr. Chubbuck, and at nine o’clock the doctor came. He was short and stout, and red in the face, and carried with him always an air of joviality. But when he came out from the sick room he looked grave.

“What is it, Doctor?” inquired Abner Pickett, anxiously.

The doctor sat down by the table and unlocked his medicine chest before replying. He was always deliberate with his answers.

“I’m afraid it’s pneumonia,” he said finally. “One lung seems to be pretty badly involved. I guess we’ll pull him through, though.”

He weighed out the medicine and divided the powder into separate doses.

“Give him one every three hours.” Then he added, “Martha’s been telling me what he did Tuesday. What under the canopy possessed him to paddle through that storm to Mooreville, I can’t see. Why, he might have died of exhaustion. As it is he—well, we’ll do what we can for him.”

He turned his attention then to the compounding of a liquid prescription.

“Give him a teaspoonful every hour,” he directed, “till you get his pulse down to something reasonable—say a hundred and twenty. How’s the lawsuit going to come out, Abner?”

“I don’t know, an’ I don’t much care if you’ll only pull this boy through.”

“Just so. Do the best we can, of course. Nice boy; hate to lose him. I don’t think you’ll have any particular trouble to-night, though, and I’ll come up in the morning again and see how he is.”

When he came the next morning, he found Dannie no better. The fever was still high, and the congestion was still spreading in the affected lung. The next day both lungs were involved. Then Dr. Chubbuck realized that the case was getting critical. He gave to his task all the energy, all the skill, all the best thought and judgment, at his command. He was fond of the boy; he had been fond of the boy’s father before him. He had known Abner Pickett intimately from childhood, and, while he respected him for his many good and sterling qualities, he did not hesitate to condemn his faults to his face. And, strange as it may seem, Dr. Chubbuck was the only man in the world, under whose condemnation Abner Pickett would sit quietly with no show of resentment. The old man believed in him, trusted him, and relied on him in everything. There was only one topic that he would not permit him to mention, and that was the estrangement between him and his son.

Notwithstanding the doctor’s skilful treatment, and Aunt Martha’s tender nursing, Dannie grew steadily worse. He did not suffer great pain, but he was growing constantly weaker, and there was no abatement of the fever. He often wandered in his mind. He thought he was again battling with the storm. He would cry out that it was impossible for him to go farther through those dreadful drifts; that he was sinking to his death in the deep snow; and he would beg piteously for some one to come and rescue him.

“There are no drifts, Dannie,” Aunt Martha would say to him. “You are not out in the snow-storm now; you are at home in bed; and I am sitting here beside you; and Gran’pap is standing there by the foot-board. You are dreaming, that is all.”

But by the time Dannie would turn his glassy eyes toward the foot of the bed, Gran’pap would not be there. He would be in the next room wiping from his face the tears that Dannie must not see. Hour after hour he would pace up and down the carpeted floor, or sit silent by the fire, waiting, in an agony of dread, for what the next moment might bring forth. While Dannie’s life was hanging in the balance he could neither work nor eat nor sleep. It distressed him greatly to hear the sick child’s constant call for water to alleviate his thirst. They were obliged to give it to him in small quantities, inasmuch as his stomach, yielding to the general weakness, was participating actively in the disease.

“Can’t he have somethin’, Doc?” exclaimed the old man, impatiently, “somethin’ that he can just drink down—somethin’ that’ll satisfy him if it ain’t but for five minutes? I can’t stan’ it to hear him beggin’ that way all the time for water!”

The doctor explained why liquids taken on the stomach in large quantities, in Dannie’s case, might prove disastrous, and then mentioned a certain carbonated water, put up in siphon bottles, which he thought might be taken more freely and with good effect.

“I can’t get it in Port Lenox,” he added; “but Chamberlain at Mooreville has it. You might send up by the stage to-morrow morning and get some and try it.”

“Write down the name of it, Doctor.”

The doctor did so. Without another word Abner Pickett took the slip of paper and left the room. He hurried to the barn and summoned Gabriel.

“Here,” he said, “help me to hitch up, quick! Take the team and the light cutter. You go to Mooreville to Chamberlain’s, as fast as the two horses’ll draw you, an’ back again. Get three dozen bottles of the stuff that’s written down on this paper, an don’t waste a minute, as you hope for Heaven!”

Gabriel obeyed the order to the letter. He saved neither the horses nor himself. At dinner time he was back again with the effervescent water. Abner Pickett was so pleased with the haste made, that he asked it as a special favor that Gabriel might go in to see Dannie.

“It’s Gabriel,” said Aunt Martha. “He brought you something from Mooreville, something to drink. Here it is in the glass. See how it sparkles!”

“And may I drink it from the glass?”

“Certainly.”

She raised his head gently from the pillow and held the tumbler to his lips. When he had swallowed the liquid he turned his grateful eyes on Gabriel.

“Thank you!” he said. “Thank you, very much. That—was so good—you were always—doing nice things for me—Gabriel.”

And Gabriel, not daring to trust himself to reply, turned and left the room. When he was able to control his voice, he said to Abner Pickett:—

“They tell me he thinks he’s in the drifts a-goin’ from the poor-house to Mooreville, an’ that the snow’s a-smotherin’ ’im. You tell ’im the road’s all clear now. Tell ’im I went by there a-flyin’. Tell ’im a baby could walk through them drifts now without any help. Maybe it’ll sort o’ relieve ’is mind on that p’int.”

The old man looked up at him grimly: “Gabriel, you’re a—God bless you, Gabriel! Get to your dinner.”

But Dannie’s dreams were not all of his journey through the storm. He often thought he was with his father. And always some one came between them and forced them apart and compelled him to go away. It was pitiful at these times to look upon his distress. It required all of Aunt Martha’s power of persuasion to induce him to believe that his imaginings were not realities. And if, at last, he was made to realize that his father was not with him, he would turn his head wearily on his pillow and sigh with disappointment. One morning Aunt Martha called the doctor aside and spoke to him very earnestly.

“Yes,” he replied; “yes, certainly. He must do it.”

He went out into the sitting room where Abner Pickett was pacing up and down the floor.

“Abner,” he said, “I’ve been used to expressing my mind to you pretty freely, and I’m going to do it now. I don’t know much about the quarrel between you and Charlie, and I don’t want to know. I don’t know which of you is to blame, and I don’t care. But, granted the fault is all Charlie’s, he has, nevertheless, some rights as a father, which you, as a man, are bound to respect. And one of them is to know that his child is desperately ill, and to have the opportunity to come, if he wants to, and look on the boy’s face while there’s life in it. Now, that’s all. If you don’t know where to find him, Martha does.”

Abner Pickett stopped in his monotonous walk and looked at the doctor for a full minute from out his haggard eyes. In that minute he went over the entire past, he considered the terrible present, he looked into the dark future. Then he said simply:—

“Tell Martha to send for him.”

At midnight Charlie Pickett came home. He entered by the kitchen door, as in the old days, and passed on into the sitting room. His father was there, seated by the fire, gazing steadfastly on the burning coals.

“Father, I’ve come.”

The old man did not answer him. He did not even lift his eyes from the blazing logs. But whether his silence was due to the old feud and stubbornness, or whether he dared not trust himself to reply, Charlie did not know.

“Father,” he said again, “I’ve come—to see Dannie.”

Still the old man did not answer, but he motioned with his head toward the inner room, and then turned again to the fire. So Charlie entered the room where his sick child lay. Aunt Martha met him at the threshold and kissed the cheek he bent down to her. Dannie was talking softly in his delirium, in the broken sentences that tell of rapid respiration. He thought he was walking up the gap in the moonlight, with his father, the engineer.

“It’s most morning now,” he murmured; “I—must hurry home. Gran’pap—don’t know—I’m out. Yes, it is; it’s a—beautiful curve, beautiful. That’s my—mother’s grave there—you know. Gran’pap wouldn’t—have a stake there—for worlds—an’ worlds. You’re so good—to go—around it. That’s because—you’re my father. Are you—my father? I’m so glad. Don’t hold me—quite so tight—father; it hurts me—here in my side—so. That’s better. Who’s that—pulling you away? Don’t go, father,—don’t go. Oh, don’t go!”

“No, Dannie; I’ll not go. I’m here now to stay until you get well.”

Dannie opened his eyes wearily, and saw his father’s face bent over him. He did not seem surprised, only gratified. He reached out both his hot hands and grasped the strong cool hand of his father.

“I’m so glad—you’re going—to stay,” he said; “I want you—all the time. I lost you—last night—in the snow. I called—and called—but you didn’t—hear me. I’m so glad—you’re here again—so glad—so glad!”

With his father’s hand in his he fell asleep, and on his face, for the first time during his illness, there was an expression of supreme content.

When Dr. Chubbuck left the sick-room the next morning no one asked him how his patient was; the look on his face forestalled that question. He sent his team and driver back to Port Lenox. “I shall not leave here to-day,” he said; “the boy needs me.”

So he watched hour after hour at Dannie’s bedside, fighting, with every resource of skill and experience, against what seemed, to all, to be the inevitable end. At midnight the crisis came. They all knew it was on. No one in the house went to bed. Gabriel, in the kitchen hallway, stood ready for instant service, as he had stood for days—and nights. Even Max, lying by the sitting-room fire, never took his sleepless eyes from the door that led to Dannie’s room. The hush that tells of the near approach of man’s last enemy lay heavy on the house and all its inmates. There came a time when even those who were nearest and dearest to the sick boy could no longer bear the strain of watching at his bedside. The sudden fall of temperature, predicted by the doctor, had come, bringing its ghastly pallor, its relaxed muscles, its vivid signs of physical collapse; and Abner Pickett and his son, both unable to continue looking on the unequal struggle, had left the room.

Since Charlie’s arrival, the night before, no word had passed between them. The old man maintained a studied silence that said as plainly as words could have expressed it that he did not intend to permit Dannie’s desperate illness to be made the occasion for a reconciliation. And Charlie, looking now and again at the haggard and anxious, yet determined, face of his father, knew that even Dannie’s death would not suffice to bridge the awful gulf of estrangement. They sat there now, in the outer room, the old man, with his chin in his hands, staring into the fire, and Charlie resting his head on the table and waiting for the end; and the unhappy, the unholy power of stubborn pride and self-will and resentment holding them aloof from each other, while, under their very eyes, death was grappling for a life that either would have given his own to save.

In the midst of their reverie they became suddenly aware that Dr. Chubbuck was standing in the doorway of the sick-room, ready to speak to them. Both men felt that the end was approaching, or had already come, and they rose reverently to their feet. The doctor advanced a few steps into the room, and spoke low, but distinctly:—

“Gentlemen, the crisis has passed. The temperature has risen to normal, and the patient has just fallen into a restful sleep. I believe he will live.”

Then he turned and went back into Dannie’s room. For a moment both men stood as if stunned. Instinctively they gazed into each other’s faces. Then Abner Pickett, with great strides, crossed the room to where Charlie stood. He put a trembling hand on each of his son’s stalwart shoulders, and looked straight into his clear blue eyes.

“My son,” he said, “I have been to blame.”

And Charlie, putting his arm caressingly about the old man’s neck, replied:—

“Father, for all that I have done against your wish and will, forgive me!”

That was all. No more words were necessary. The reconciliation was complete. That which even Dannie’s death could not have brought about was accomplished in one instant by the announcement that he would live. Joy will sometimes crush the heart that sorrow cannot touch.

A minute later, when Aunt Martha was about to cross the room hurriedly on some errand of mercy, she stopped suddenly, astounded at the sight that greeted her. But she grasped at once the beautiful meaning of it all, and raising her eyes devoutly toward heaven, she gently murmured:—

“Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory!”

When Gabriel learned that Dannie would live, his joy knew no bounds; and when, in addition to that, he was told that Abner Pickett had become reconciled with his son, he could find but one mode of expressing his deep exultation. He plunged through the trackless fields and up the steep, snow-covered side of the ridge till he reached the topmost peak above the glen; and there, where no sound that he could make would disturb the sufferer, facing alternately to the bright east and the clear west, he blew blast after blast on his faithful horn; blast after blast, with bulging cheeks and reddening face and pounding heart, till it seemed as though the echoes of the hill and glen would tire of answering.

But Dannie was not yet wholly out of danger. His convalescence was very slow. There were still days of disappointment and nights of anxiety. He never seemed to wonder at his father’s presence, although it was plain that he rejoiced in it. It was thought best not to tell him at once of the reconciliation between Abner Pickett and his son. It was necessary to avoid every pretext for undue excitement; and the two men were never in his room together after that terrible night when the crisis was passed; never until they were sure he would be able to bear the news. It was one day when he was sitting propped up in bed, looking out over the snow-clad hills, that they came in quietly and stood together at his side before he was aware of their presence. He looked wonderingly from one to the other; but there was a smile on the face of each, and then Charlie laid his arm gently about the old man’s shoulders.

“Is it true?” asked Dannie, flushing with joy and pride as he looked.

“It is true,” said Abner Pickett.

“And, please God, it will stay true,” added Charlie.

Swift tears sprang into Dannie’s eyes, and he put a thin, weak arm around each of their necks, and drew their faces down to his and kissed them. In the doorway Gabriel stood with a newspaper in his hand endeavoring to attract attention. When at last the two men turned toward him, he exclaimed in a loud and exultant whisper:—

“We’ve won it.”

“Won what?” asked Charlie.

“The lawsuit. It’s all here in the paper.”

He held up the page so that they could read the head-lines.

“Judge Moore Continues the Injunction against the D. V. & E. and Makes it Permanent. Holds that the Adoption of the Pickett’s Gap Route by the Board of Directors of the T. & W. was First in Point of Time. Declares that the Deed of Right of Way through Pickett’s Graveyard is Invalid, having been Obtained through a Misunderstanding of Facts. Concludes that the D. V. & E. Company has no Right to Lay its Tracks in the Gap or the Graveyard.”

“I’m so glad!” exclaimed Dannie.

“I knowed we’d knock ’em out in the fust round,” said Gabriel. “Ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say, ‘It ain’t ev’ry—’”

“Gabriel,” interrupted the old man, with a smile on his face that told of the joy in his heart even though he gave voice to the old familiar words, “Gabriel, you’re a fool.”