HAT afternoon Keith Gordon went to Warren's to tell Helen of Carson's plan for the removal of Pete. She received him in the big parlor, and he found her seated at one of the wide windows which, in summer-time, was used as a doorway to the veranda.

“I met the conquering hero, Mr. Sanders, on my way down,” he said, lightly. “I presume he has been here as usual.”

“He only called to say good-bye,” Helen answered, a little coldly.

“Oh, that is news,” Keith pursued, in the same tone. “Rather sudden, isn't it?”

“No, his affairs would not permit a longer visit,” said Helen. “But you didn't come to talk of him; it was something about Pete.”

She sat very still and rigid while he went into detail as to the whole situation, and when he had finished she rested her chin in her white hand, and he saw her breast rise and fall tremulously.

“There is danger attached to the trip,” she said, without looking at him. “I know it, Keith, by the way you talk.”

He deliberated for an instant, then acknowledged: “Yes, there is, and to my way of thinking, Helen, there is a great deal. Wade and I tried to get him to consent to some other plan, but he wouldn't hear to it. He's so anxious to put it through all right that he won't trust to any substitute, and he won't let any one else go along, either. He thinks it would attract too much attention.”

“In what particular way does the danger lie?” Helen faltered, and Keith saw her pass her hand over her mouth as if to reprimand her lips for their unsteadiness.

“I'd tell you there wasn't any at all, as Carson would have me do,” Keith declared; “but when a fellow has the courage of an army of men, I believe in his getting the full credit for it. You want to know and I'm going to tell you. He's been through ticklish places enough in this business, but going over that lonely road to-night, when a thousand furious men may be on the lookout for him, is the worst thing he has tackled. It wouldn't be so very dangerous to a man who would throw up his hands if accosted, but, Helen, if you could have seen Carson's face when he was telling us about it, you would know that he will actually die rather than see Pete taken. He's reckless of late, anyway.”

“Reckless!” Helen echoed, and this time she gave Keith a full, almost pleading stare.

“Oh yes, you know he's reckless. He's been so ever since Mr. Sanders came. It looks to me like—well, I reckon a man can understand another better than a woman can, but it looks to me like Carson is doing the whole thing because you feel so worried about it.”

“You certainly wrong him there,” Helen declared.

“He is doing it simply because it is right.”

“Oh, of course he thinks it's right,” Keith returned, with a boyish smile; “he thinks everything you want is right.”

When Keith had gone Helen went at once to Linda's cottage to tell her the news, putting it in as hopeful a light as possible, and not touching upon the danger of the journey. But the old woman had a very penetrating mind, and she stood in the doorway with a deeply furrowed brow for several minutes without saying anything, then her observation only added to Helen's burden of anxiety.

“Chile,” she said, “ol' Lindy don't like de way dat looks one bit. You say young marster got ter steal off in de dead o' night, en dat he cayn't even let me see my boy once 'fo' he go. Suppin up, honey—suppin up! De danger ain't over yit. Honey, I know what it is,” Linda groaned; “dem white folks is rising ergin.”

“Well, even if that is the reason”—Helen felt the chill hand of fear grasp her heart at the admission—“even if that is it, Carson will get him away safely.”

“Ef he kin, honey, ef he kin!” Linda moaned.

“'God been behind 'im all thoo so fur, but I seed de time when de Lawd Hisse'f seem ter turn His back on folks tryin' ter do dey level best.”

Leaving Linda muttering and moaning in the cottage doorway, the girl went with a despondent step back to the big empty house and wandered aimlessly about the various rooms.

As night came on and her father returned from town, she met him on the veranda and gave him a kiss of greeting, but she soon discovered that he had heard nothing. In fact, he was one of the many who still believed that Pete had been lynched, the vague whisperings to the contrary not having reached his old ears. She sat with him at the tea-table, and then went up to her room and lighted her lamp on her bureau. As she did so she looked at her reflection in the mirror and started at the sight of her grave features. Then a flash from her wrist caught her eye. It was the big diamond of a beautiful bracelet which Sanders had given her, and as she looked at it she shuddered. Was she superstitious? She hardly knew, and yet a strange idea took possession of her brain. Would her unspoken prayers for Carson Dwight's safety in his perilous expedition be answered while she wore that gift from another man, after she had spurned Carson's great and lasting love, and allowed the poor boy to think that she had given herself heart and soul to this stranger? She hesitated only a moment, and opening a jewel box she unclasped the bracelet and put it away. Then with a certain lightness of heart she went to the window overlooking the grounds of the Dwight homestead and stood there staring out in the hope of seeing Carson. But he was evidently not at home, for no lights were visible except a dim one in the invalid's room and one in old Dwight's chamber adjoining.

At ten o'clock Helen disrobed herself still with that awful sense of impending tragedy hovering over her. The oil in her lamp was almost out, and for this reason only she extinguished the flame, else she would have kept it burning through the night to dissipate the material shadows which seemed to accentuate those of her spirit. She heard the old grandfather clock on the stair-landing below solemnly strike ten, then the monotonous tick-tack as the great pendulum swung to and fro. Sleep was out of the question. A few minutes before eleven she heard a soft foot-fall on the walk in the front garden, and going out on the veranda she looked down.

The bowed form of a woman was moving restlessly back and forth from the steps to the gate.

“Is that you, mammy?” Helen asked, softly.

The handkerchiefed head was lifted and Linda looked up.

“Yes, it's me, honey. I can't sleep. What de use? Kin er mother sleep when her chile is comin' in de worl'? No, you know she can't; neither kin she close 'er eyes when she's afeared dat same chile is gwine out of it. I'm afeared, honey. I'm afeared ter-night wuss dan all. Seem lak de evil sperits des been playin' wid us all erlong—makin' us think we gwine ter come thoo, so't will hit us harder w'en it do strack de blow. You go on back ter yo' baid, honey. You catch yo' death er cold. I'm gwine home right now.”

Helen saw the old woman disappear round the corner of the house, but she remained on the veranda. The clock was striking eleven, and she was about to go in, when she heard the dull beat of hoofs on the carriage-drive of the Dwight place, and through the half moonlight she saw a pair of horses, Carson's best, harnessed to a buggy and driven by their owner slowly and cautiously going towards the big gate. Dwight himself got down to open it. She heard his low commands to the spirited animals as he led them forward by the bit, and then he stepped back to close and latch the gate. She had an overpowering impulse to call out to him; but would it be wise? His evident precaution was to keep his mother from knowing of his departure, and Helen's voice might attract the attention of the invalid and seriously hamper him in his undertaking. With her hands pressed to her breast she saw him get into the buggy, heard his calm voice as he spoke to the horses, and then he was off—off to do his duty—and hers. She went back to her room and laid down, haunted by the weird thought that she would never see him again. Then, all at once, she had a flash of memory which sent the hot blood of shame from her heart to her brain, and she sat up, staring through the darkness. That was the man against whom she had steeled her heart for his conduct, his youthful indiscretions with her unfortunate brother. Was Carson Dwight to go forever unpardoned—unpardoned by such as she while that sort of soul held suffering sway within him?

The hours of the long night dragged by and another day began. Keith came up after breakfast and related the particulars of Carson's departure. Graphically he recounted how the gang had robed the ill-starred Pete in grotesque woman's attire and seen him and Carson safely in the buggy, but that was all that could be told or foretold. As for Keith, he and all the rest were trying to look on the bright side, and they would succeed better but for the long face Pole Baker had drawn when he came into town early that morning and heard of the expedition.

“So he was uneasy?” Helen said, in perturbation.

Keith hesitated for a moment and then answered: “Yes, to tell you the truth, Helen, it almost staggered him. He is a good-natured, long-headed chap, and he lost his temper. He cursed us all out for a silly, stupid set for allowing Carson to take such a risk. Finally we drew out of him what he feared. He said the particular road Carson took to reach the State line was actually alive with men, who had been keyed up to the highest tension by Wiggin and his followers. Pole said they had their eye on that road particularly because it was the most direct way to Chattanooga, and that Carson wouldn't have one chance in five hundred of passing unmolested. He said the idea of fooling men of that stamp by putting Pete in a woman's dress in the company of Carson, of all human beings, was the work of insane men.”

“It really was dangerous!” said Helen, pale to the lips.

“Well, we meant it for the best”—Keith defended himself and his friends—“we didn't know the road was a particularly dangerous one. In fact, Pole didn't learn it himself until several hours after Carson had left. I really believe he'd have helped us do what we did if he had been with us last night. We did the best we could; besides, Carson was going to have his way. Every protest we made was swept off with that winning laugh of his. In spite of the gravity of the thing, he kept us roaring. I have never seen him in better spirits. He was bowing and scraping before that veiled and hooded darky as if he were the grandest lady in the land. He even insisted on handing Pete into the buggy and protecting his long skirt from the dusty wheel. We never realized what we had done till he was gone and we all gathered in the store and talked it over. Blackburn, I reckon, being the oldest, was the bluest. He almost cried. Helen, I've seen popular men in my life, but I never saw one with so many friends as Carson. He's an odd combination. His friends love him extravagantly and his enemies hate him to the limit.”

Late that afternoon, unable to wait longer for news of Carson, Helen went down to his office. Garner was in, and she surprised a look of firmly grounded uneasiness on his strong face. For a moment it was as if he intended to make some equivocal reply to her inquiry, but threw aside the impulse as unworthy of her courage and intelligence.

“To be candid,” he said, as he stood stroking his chin, which bristled with open disregard for appearances under stress of more important things—“to tell you the whole truth, Miss Helen, I don't like the lay of the land.” Then he told her that the sheriff had just informed him of the whispered rumor that a body of men had met Carson Dwight and his charge near the State line about three o'clock in the morning. What had taken place the sheriff didn't know, beyond the fact that the men had disbanded and returned to their homes all gravely uncommunicative. What it meant no one but the participants knew. To face the facts, it looked very much as if harm had really come to one, if not to both, of the two. The mob had evidently been wrought to a high pitch of resentment for the trick Carson had played in stealing the prisoner from jail, and this second attempt to get him away may have enraged his enemies to outright violence against him, especially as Dwight was a fighting man and very hot-headed when roused.

Unable to discuss the matter in her depressed frame of mind, Helen left him and went home. The whole story being now out, she found her father warmly excited and disposed to talk about it in all its phases, the earliest as well as the latest, but she had no heart for it, and after urging the Major not to speak of it to Linda she went supperless to her room.

Two hours passed. The dusk had given way to the deeper darkness of evening. The moon had not yet risen and the starlight from a partly clouded sky was not sufficiently luminous to aid the vision in reaching any considerable distance, and yet from one of the rear windows of her room, where she stood morosely contemplative, she could see the vague outlines of Linda's cottage. It was while she was looking at the doorway of the little domicile, which stood out above the shrubbery of the rear garden as if dimly lighted from a candle within, that she saw something which caused her heart to suddenly bound. It was the live coal of a cigar, and the smoker seemed to be leaving the cottage, passing through the little gateway, and entering her father's grounds. What more natural than for Carson, if he had returned safely, to go at once to the mother of the boy with the news? Helen almost held her breath. She would soon be reasonably sure, for if it were Carson he would take a diagonal direction to reach the gateway to the Dwight homestead. Was it Carson, or—could it be her father? Her heart sank over the last surmise, and then it bounded again, for the coal of fire, fitfully flaring, was moving in the direction prayed for. Down the stairs Helen glided noiselessly, lest the Major hear her, and yet rapidly. When she reached the front veranda and descended the steps to the grass of the lawn she was just in time to see the red disk passing through the gateway to Dwight's. No form was visible, and yet she called out firmly and clearly: “Carson! Carson!” The coal of fire paused, described a curve, and she bounded towards it.

“Did you call me?” Carson Dwight asked, in a voice so low from hoarseness that it hardly reached her ears.

“Yes, wait!” she panted. “Oh, you've gotten back!”

They now stood face to face.

“Oh yes,” he laughed, with a gesture towards his throat of apology for his hoarseness; “did you think I was off for good?”

“No, but I was afraid”—she was shocked by the pallor of his usually ruddy face, the many evidences of fatigue upon him, the nervous way he stood holding his hat and cigar—“I was afraid you had met with disaster.”

“But why did you feel that way?” he asked, reassuringly.

“Oh, from what Keith said in general, and Mr. Garner, too. They declared the road you took was full of desperadoes, and—”

“I might have known they would exaggerate the whole business,” Carson said, with a smile. “Why, I've just come from Mam' Linda's. I went to tell her that Pete is all right and as sound as a dollar. He's in the charge of good, reliable friends of mine up there, and wholly out of danger. In fact, he's as happy as a lark. When I left him he was surrounded by a gang of as trifling scamps as himself bragging about his numerous escapes and—he's generous—my importance in the community we live in. Well, he's certainly been important enough lately.”

“But did you not meet with—with any opposition at all?” Helen went on, insistently.

“Oh, well”—he hesitated, struck a match, and applied it to his already lighted cigar—“we lost our way, for one thing. You see, I was a little afraid to carry a light, and it was hard to make out the different sign-boards, and, all in all, it was a slow trip, but we got through all right. And hungry! Gee whiz! We struck a restaurant in the outskirts of Chattanooga about sunup, and while that fellow was cooking us some steak and making coffee we could have eaten him alive. If Mam' Linda could have seen her boy eat she would have no fears as to his bodily condition.”

“But didn't you meet some men who stopped you?” Helen asked, staring steadily into his eyes.

He blinked, flicked the ashes from his cigar, and said: “Yes, we did, and they were really on the war-path, but they seemed very reasonable, and when I had talked to them and explained the matter from our stand-point—why, they—they let us go.”

They had gone into the grounds and were near the main walk when the gate was opened and a man came striding towards them. It was Jeff Braider.

“Oh, I've been looking for you everywhere, Carson,” he cried, warmly, shaking Dwight's hand. “I heard you'd got back, but I wanted to see you with my own eyes. Lord, Lord, my boy, if I'd known the awful trouble I was getting you into I'd never have let you take that road. I've just heard the whole story. For genuine pluck and endurance you certainly take the rag off the bush. Why, nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand would have given up the game, but you, you young bull-dog—”

“Carson, Carson! are you down there?” It was a man's voice from an upper window.

“Yes, father, what is it?”

“Your mother wants to see you right now. She's waked up and is worrying. Come on in.”

“You'll both excuse me for just a moment, I know,” Carson said, as if glad of the interruption. “I'll be back presently. I haven't seen my mother since I returned, and she is very nervous and easily excited.”