Unknown to Tabitha, Miss Pomeroy had telegraphed her coming, and Tom was there to meet her at the station when the cars slowed down at the forsaken-looking desert town. She looked at his white, haggard face and heavy eyes, and her heart stood still. "Oh, Tom, he isn't—"

"No, dear, not that. He is better this morning, the doctor says; but he is pretty badly hurt. I am glad you have come, though we didn't think it was necessary to send for you."

That was all they said until the weather-beaten cottage was reached. Then just as Tabitha opened the screen to enter the stifling kitchen, Tom spoke:

"He is in your room. He insisted upon being put there with the bed drawn up by the window. They probably won't let you see him yet, but there is a heap of things to be done that I haven't the slightest notion about, Puss. I can sweep and dust and make beds, and even cook potatoes and boil coffee, but how in creation do you make broths that a sick man will eat? And where can a fellow get cool water this kind of weather with no ice in town? The ice-plant burned last week."

Tabitha's anxiety lifted for the moment, and laying aside her dainty traveling dress, she donned a big apron and fell to work setting the little house to rights. Those were hard days that followed, and more than once the burden seemed almost too great for the slender shoulders. Two miners were hurt at the Silver Legion, and the nurse was called away to care for them at the hospital. The hot winds descended suddenly upon the desert and Silver Bow writhed under the fierce glare of the blazing sun. All who could get away left the stifling town for the cool breath of the seashore, and no help could be found for the girl working so bravely in the lonely little cottage, taking the place of nurse and housekeeper and facing a situation before which many a stouter heart would have quailed. Tom did his best, but the sick man became possessed of a whim that no one should wait upon him but poor, tired Tabitha, and day and night found her ministering to him in the sweltering heat that seemed fairly to cook town and people.

Dr. Vane's face grew very grave as he watched the struggle, and one day he said to Tom as he was leaving on his other calls, "Is it possible for your aunt to come out here again?"

"I am afraid not, sir," was the discouraged answer. "She is just recovering from a severe siege of fever herself."

The doctor shook his head. "I ought to have sent your father to Los Angeles the minute I was called to attend him; but he was so set against it that I didn't insist, and now—"

"Is there any danger?"

"If this heat would let up a little, I think there would be no doubt but that we could pull him through. But—Tabitha ought to have some help for her own sake."

Poor Tom! He could see that the little sister was weakening, and he was doing all in his power to lighten her load, but he could not help her in her ceaseless watching which was telling so fearfully on her strength. In an agony of anguish and despair he slipped out to the back steps and sat heavily down in the shade of the house, dropping his hot head on his arms and two stinging tears coursing down his cheeks.

"I beg your pardon, but isn't this where Mr. Catt lives?"

The voice spoke directly at his elbow, and Tom, so much absorbed in his unhappy thoughts that he had not heard the approaching footsteps, looked up in surprise to see a tall, well-dressed, refined-looking stranger on the lower step.

"Yes, sir."

"May I see him?"

"He is very sick—hurt—and doesn't know anyone. We can't allow folks to see him."

"I understood that he was seriously injured and that you needed someone to help care for him. I—"

"We are in need of help," Tom interrupted; "but he won't let anyone wait on him but my sister."

"He will me." The man spoke with such confidence that again Tom looked his surprise. "The little girl is all tired out. Take me to your father. Oh, it is all right! I have Dr. Vane's sanction. Besides—well, I may as well tell you now. I am the 'hermit of the hills' whom Tabitha saved from burning to death more than a year ago. I was your father's partner once and his dearest friend; but I proved false to my trust. I cheated him out of his share in some valuable property—wrecked his whole life. Take me to him and don't fear the consequences."

Tom rose quickly. "Come inside. Tabitha is with him now."

He led the unexpected guest to the little room where the sick man lay tossing and muttering in the delirium of fever.

"Why didn't you put ice in that water?" he was saying querulously. "If you are bound to feed me boiled water, I want it cold."

Patient little Tabitha sighed wearily and turned toward the kitchen with the rejected glass on the tray, just as the hermit paused on the threshold.

"Here is a glass of ice-water, Lynne," said the stranger, taking the tumbler from the girl's hand. "Drink this and go to sleep."

"Why, hello, Decker!" exclaimed the patient, with a gleam of intelligence lighting his face for the moment. "How did you come here? Say, that water is fine!" Dropping back among the pillows, the exhausted man slept; and Tabitha, relieved of her responsibility, crept away to hold a quiet jubilation with Tom before she, too, fell asleep, worn out by her tireless vigil.

Meanwhile the stranger busied himself with the neglected housework, and soon the cottage took on a comfortable appearance again; Tom's spirits began to rise and hope to sing in his discouraged heart once more. Perhaps things were not as bad as they had seemed after all. At evening the busy doctor drove up again, and was rejoiced to find both patient and nurse still sleeping.

"There is a big storm brewing up in the mountains," he announced jubilantly, "and we ought to have it a bit cooler here in a few hours. Let them sleep as long as they will; both need it. Keep up your courage, Tom; Simmons is a jewel and knows just what to do." He was gone again, leaving Tom standing on the steps in the blackness of the night, singing in his heart a hymn of thanksgiving.

The storm broke at length with terrible fury, and all night the heavy thunder crashed from peak to peak as if threatening total destruction to everything on the desert below; but when the hurricane had spent its fury, the fearful heat was broken, and the whole world awoke refreshed from its bath. In the sweet coolness of the early dawn, Mr. Catt opened his eyes to consciousness for the first time since the day of the accident, and his gaze fell upon the face of his strange nurse sitting beside his bed.

"Decker Simmons!" he exclaimed in a weak, incredulous voice.

"Yes, Lynne. I have come back to face the music, but I have brought with me every cent of your money and interest. Can you forgive the great wrong I have done you?" His scarred face worked pathetically, and he stretched out his hands somewhat hesitatingly, with entreaty in his whole bearing.

The sick man looked steadily at him for a long moment, then clasped the proffered hand weakly, and murmured, "I forgive!"

A deep silence fell over the room; then after a few moments of thought too sacred for words, the invalid asked faintly, "Have you told Thomas and Tabitha?"

"Yes."

He sighed contentedly, and still holding tightly to the hermit's hand, drifted away into refreshing, health-giving slumber.

So it happened that a few days later when strength was flowing back into the injured man's veins, he called his children to him. They went with something like trepidation in their hearts; but one look into the white face on the pillow told them that this was not the same man whom they had known and feared all their lives. It may have been the restored confidence in his friend, it may have been that the fever had burned out the austerity and selfishness of his heart and brought the real fatherly tenderness to the surface. He mutely held out a thin hand to each, and they awkwardly gave him theirs, not knowing what to say and sitting in silent embarrassment on either side of the bed, waiting for him to speak. At last he laid Tabitha's hand on the counterpane, and fumbling beneath his pillow, drew forth a bright gold piece, which he held out to her, smiling sadly at the surprise in her face.

"What is this?" she found voice to ask.

"Long ago I punished you severely—too severely—and you called me a beast. I think that was the first time I ever recognized how thoroughly beastly I was. I—I wasn't man enough to tell you so, nor to admit how sorry I was for my severity; so after you were asleep, I put this in your hand, thinking it might—make up for my harshness. I suppose it dropped to the floor during the night and rolled into that wide crack in the corner where the bed used to stand. I saw the glint of it this morning when a sunbeam chanced to fall upon it, and it brought back the memory of that other day. Tabitha, I am sorry. Is it too late to forgive me now?"

Tom surreptitiously drew his free hand across his eyes; and Tabitha, almost too surprised for reply, squeezed her father's arm in a gentle caress, as she whispered chokingly, "I forgave that long ago. It did seem too great a punishment then, but it taught me a lesson I have never forgotten."

"Poor little daughter! What a selfish brute I have been! And I might have made you so happy!"

"Don't, Dad!" she pleaded. "I—I—you have made me happy now! The rest doesn't count!"

He smiled tenderly into the soft black eyes, as he drew her closer to him and said wistfully, "I wish the rest didn't count, children; but the fact still remains that I have not done right by my boy and girl. I am sorry, and when I get up from this bed, I mean to be a better man.

"Decker has come back, we are going into partnership again and work those claims for all there is in them. Tom shall finish college and Tabitha shall go back to boarding school or wherever she likes. There is money enough for whatever you want, and it is all yours. A man with children like mine is graciously blessed. I have been a fool and wasted many precious years. I can't bring them back and live them over, but I can and will live the rest of my life right in God's sight. Can you still love me in spite of all that is past, children?"

For answer, by common impulse they slipped their arms around him, and he drew each face down to his and kissed it. The barriers of years were swept away, and father and children were united by love.

For a long time the little group sat there talking over plans for their future happiness and drinking in the supremest joy of living.

Then the father spoke abruptly: "There is another matter, children. When I named you as I did, I thought I was spiting the world. My own life had been made bitter by just that same thing, and I wanted to get even; but I only broke your mother's heart and made you both as miserable as I had been. It isn't too late yet to change that. Drop those names I gave you and choose for yourselves what you would like to be called."

They stared at each other, then at him, in dumb amazement. Change their names! The possibility of having such a privilege granted them had never occurred to either one before. At length Tabitha spoke:

"If you had told me that once, I would have done it only too quickly; but now I have learned that if a person is kind and lovable, no one cares what the name is. Pretty names don't make nice people, and homely ones don't make them bad, either. I am—beginning—to rather like 'Tabitha' now, and I don't wish to change my name."

"Or I mine," added Tom; and once more the father drew their faces down to his own and kissed them.

THE END