Over two centuries ago. Virginia, fair Virginia, in her most rugged, uncouth state, yet queen of all the colonies, rich in the dignity of an advanced settlement, glorious in prophecies and ambitions; the favoured ward of England's sovereigns, the paradise of her royal pillagers, the birthplace of American Freedom.

Jamestown was in the throes of a savage struggle, confined not to herself alone, but spreading to the farthermost ends of the apparently unbounded state. The capital fight was on, the contest waging between the town in which grew Bacon's rebellion and Williamsburg, in which William and Mary College had just been born, an infant venture that seemed but a mockery in the wilds. Boisterous, boasting Jamestown, since the rule of Berkeley and the unfortunate overthrow of Bacon, had resumed a state of composure which she had not known in the five preceding decades, and was beginning to look upon herself as the undisputed metropolis of the wilderness. The impudence of Williamsburg, with her feeble scholastic claims, was not even condemned—it was ignored.

The crude fort at Jamestown held a merry garrison, the Governor having impressed upon royalty across the sea the importance of troops in a land where unexpected rebellions against authority might succeed the partially triumphant uprising against Sir William in 1676. Bacon's death in the October of that year had lost the fight which had been fairly won, and it was wisdom which told the new Governor that troops were essential, even in time of peace.

The commander of the garrison was Colonel Fortune. The number and quality of his troops are not important factors in this tale.

Among the men were a dozen or more subalterns, fresh from England, undergoing their first rough work in the forests of Virginia. In this fledgling crowd were young Grafton, afterward a general; Mooney, Vedder, Hoicraft and others, whose names, with those of their Virginia companions went into colonial history.

Near the fort were the homes of the officers, the Governor's residence being but a short distance down the rough, winding lane, which was dignified by the name of street. Colonel Fortune's home was the handsomest, the merriest of them all, a typical frontier mansion. A mansion of those days could be little more than a cottage in these, yet the Colonel's was far brighter, gayer than the palace of today. In his house gathered chivalrous subalterns from English homes, stalwart Virginians of inherited gallantry, the men and women from whom sprung the first families of that blue blood which all Americans cherish lovingly and proudly.

His board was more hospitable than that of the Governor, his favours were coveted more eagerly even than were those of his superior. Stern, exacting, yet affable and courteous, he was the idol of a people whose hatred for those who ruled them had wrought ruin more than once. Mrs. Fortune, a lady of gentle birth closely related, in fact, to a certain branch of nobility, shared the power of her husband.

But there was a colonial queen whose reign was of more consequence to the youth of Jamestown than was that of the august person across the sea. She was queen of hearts, this daughter of theirs, airy Kate Fortune. Daintiest maid in all the land, famed for her wit, her follies, her merry loveliness, her dimples and her sunshine, she was the wiliest tempter who ever laid unconscious siege against man's indifference. The English officers called her an angel, the more deferential Virginians moaned that she was a witch, yet would not have burned her for the whole universe. On the contrary, they sacrificed themselves to the worship of her craft. War and strife were forgotten, the treacheries of the Indians were minimised, and a score or more of dreamers, awake or asleep, found their minds so full of dainty Kate that thought of else could work no means of entrance. In that year of our Lord, Jamestown was a veritable cauldron of rivals, fair suitors all, some bold, some timid, none hopeful.

Strange as it may appear to those who live these two centuries later, there were no jealousies, no bitterness among them. In those good days the favoured man's best friends were his beaten rivals. Kate's kingdom was not large, was not glittering, but her sceptre was mighty. It was made of tenderness and beauty.

For two months the Governor's nephew had been her most ardent admirer, notwithstanding the fact that he had been in Virginia but sixty days. His surrender had been instantaneous.

Ordinarily the nephew of the Governor, who was a lord of the realm, might be considered a superior rival, but in this instance he was not even feared. He had come to Jamestown with exalted ideas. He dressed better, talked better and lived better, and he seemed to hold every man in the colony in disdain. Friendly, courteous even to the lowest soldier, he still gave forth the impression that he was condescending, not alone to those beneath, but to those above him. That this scion, this self-ordered perfect man, should have drifted to the colonies from the drawing-rooms of London only to fall in love with Kate Fortune seemed incredible.

Moreover, he had refused to wrestle in the contests at the fort, and had failed to fight the man who had warmly called him a coward in the presence of others.

Tales of his conduct in that and other exhibitions had been spread, and the good-looking young officer eventually became a laughing-stock. One day, however, he pulled the nose of an impudent lieutenant. When the red-faced lieutenant insisted upon satisfaction with swords he merely turned pale and ignored the challenge.

"I came here to fight the Indians, not to kill my comrades," he had said, and a disdainful laugh followed, bringing a flush to his face as he walked away.

Kate Fortune rather admired the easy elegance of the stranger, yet despised his lack of courage, the story having come to her promptly enough. She began to treat him coldly and he was at last driven to feel that he was her most unwelcome suitor. One day he bluntly asked her why she treated him so unkindly.

"Captain Studdiford, I will be frank with you," replied the girl. "How can you expect me to admire a man who submits to the ridicule of a whole company of men, not one of whom seems able to cope with him in strength or in the experience of arms? I am the daughter of an English soldier; that should be sufficient reason for my conduct. If I have mistreated you it was because I could not help it." She saw a look of pain come and go in his flushed face, hence the hasty apology, such as it was.

"So I am an object of derision to you, as well as to them," he observed, quietly. "I shall not intrude myself again, Miss Fortune. I am brave enough to tell you, for the first time, and in the face of your evident dislike, that I love you better than I ever dreamed I could love a woman." He was turning away in apparent indifference as he concluded this strange avowal.

Kate planted herself squarely before him, her pretty, perplexed face twitching between a smile and a frown, wonder fairly popping from her curious blue eyes.

"Isn't it cowardly to say that when you know how I feel? You are safe in confessing something that you already know I cannot consider," she said.

"I would rather not discuss it. You may treat it as a jest, as cowardice, or what you like. I cannot control your treatment of the best thing an honest man has to give a woman." It left the girl standing on the tips of her toes in sheer surprise. She was at no time a dignified queen, but she was an inquisitive one.

"But, Captain, you must not go away fearing that I—I shall treat lightly what you have said to me," she murmured.

"Fearing? Why should I fear your ridicule more than that of others? You are brighter, more bewitching, more tantalising than any woman I have ever known—you are maddening—do you hear? Ah, I crave your pardon for so far forgetting myself as to dwell upon a matter which I should have forgotten in your displeasure. By the way, I should like to tell you why I will not accommodate these young fools with a duel, why I have controlled my natural desire to resent their insults. I have fought one duel and I have killed a man. These men would have no more chance than that man had. You may tell them so. Farewell!"

She watched his tall figure move from her dooryard and disappear in the direction of the river. Then Kate sat down in the window and gazed half regretfully toward the opening in the timber through which he had passed.

It began to occur to her that Captain Studdiford was somehow the superior of any man she had ever seen. She felt a joy that he had fought a duel, although the thought that he had killed a man caused her to shudder. With the shudder, however, came the relieved feeling that he had not been the victim. Her face flushed faintly, too, as she recalled his strange avowal of love.

That same night a half dozen young men, with as many maids, dropped in to spend the chilly evening before the Colonel's roaring fires. They were toasting apples and chattering gaily when Kate suddenly turned to a young Virginian, and with taunting eyes, cried:

"Morton Trask, I know why Captain Studdiford would not fight a duel with you."

"So do I," responded Trask. "Because he feared me."

"'Twas no such reason. He says he does not choose to kill anything but Indians." A big laugh went up from the men.

"The fool! Did he say that to you?" cried Trask.

"He truly did; and, besides, he has fought and killed a man."

"Ho! Ho!" laughed Trask, disdainfully.

"Did he stab him in the dark?" questioned Farring.

"He lies if he says he fought aught save a boy," sneered Trask.

"Yet he pulled your valiant nose until it was red for near a week," said Kate, cheerily.

"Oh, would that I were at him—the coward!" cried Trask, white and trembling.

"You can pull his nose when next you meet him, Morton, it is your turn, you know," said Kate, laughingly, and Trask glared at the burning logs in angry silence.

"Please forgive me, Morton; I did not mean to hurt you by recalling a previous injury," cried Kate, and Trask's injury increased with her contrition.

"I cannot see why you defend the Captain, Miss Fortune," ventured Farring.

"Why not? He will not defend himself."

"But you surely cannot approve a coward?"

"Are you sure he is a coward?"

"I should consider myself one under the circumstances, I believe," he replied, evasively.

"Would it not be cowardly to fight Morton Trask if he knew he could kill him?"

"Bah!" came from the angry Trask.

"He could, at least, have given Trask satisfaction for an insult," said Varney. Kate wavered.

"That's true," she said; "he should have been a gentleman. Still, that does not prove him a coward."

"I'll wager that I can prove him a coward," observed Lieutenant Holmes. "And safely, too."

"'Twere wise to do it safely," supplemented Miss Fortune.

"One time at home we exposed a boasting captain, who would have had us think him the bravest man on earth—"

"But that does not seem to be Captain Studdiford's object," interrupted Kate.

"True," went on Holmes, "but that has nothing to do with it. This captain was one night approached by five of his fellow officers, disguised as highwaymen, and despite his declarations that he had fought dozens of such men, he ran like a hound, screaming murder all the way. Why not test your captain's courage as we tested ours, Miss Fortune?"

"In the first place, I could not be a very impressive highwayman, and in the second place, he might shoot."

"You have plenty of men at your command who would serve as Indians for such an experiment," speculated Varney.

"Egad! we all would!" exclaimed Holmes. "So you might!" she cried. "He would be willing to kill you if you were Indians."

"We might as well give up the plan, for we could not force him to leave town without a bodyguard," sneered Trask.

"Fie! That is easy. Miss Fortune could ask him to ride with her into the forest and he would go blindly enough," said Holmes.

"I?" cried Kate, blushing to think of herself in that position after Studdiford's proclamation. "I could not—would not do such a thing. Prove him a coward, but do not ask me to help you." "Holmes is right, and Miss Fortune should be willing to make the test. She is his defender; she cannot refuse to satisfy herself of her error in this harmless, yet effective way," announced big Farring, and every member of the party laid siege against Kate's faltering opposition. The fun of it all finally appealed to her and she rather timidly agreed to the proposition. How could she ask him to ride with her after what had passed between them? He would think her unwomanly and, strangely enough, with that thought she began to feel that she must have his good opinion. Yet she went, half dubiously, into the plot to prove a coward of the man she was beginning to admire.

The details of the scheme were submitted by the men, and were as follows: Kate was to ask him to ride horseback with her to "Big Fork," five miles through the forest, on some near afternoon, and the men were to bedeck themselves as Indians, attack them, take her from his custody and hurry her off into apparent captivity, whilst he trembled with fear and inaction.

"But suppose he should happen to be disappointing and shoot somebody," objected Lucy Gaines.

"Oh, he must have no chance to do that," said Varney. "Miss Fortune can induce him to discharge his pistols in some feat of marksmanship and we will swoop down before he can reload them."

"For shame!" cried Kate. "How could that be a fair test of bravery? An unarmed man against five brawny Indians! I'll have none of it. His pistols must remain undisturbed."

"But—good heavens!—he may kill us all," cried Trask.

"Well, how else is he to prove his courage? You must take your chances, gentlemen, with your coward. If he is a coward you need not fear his pistols, though he had a dozen; if he is not, then you may have to run from them."

"Allow us to capture you and offer him the privilege of fighting for your liberty, choosing his own weapons. If he agrees to fight for you, instead of taking his proffered freedom, we will leave the field to him and you may call him hero. That is fair, is it not?" proposed Farring.

"You will not hurt him?" asked Kate doubtingly.

"Hurt him? We shall not even catch him. He will leave you and fly for his life!" cried Trask.

"I tell you now, gentlemen, if he stands the test and disproves your taunts against his valour, my respect for him will be far more than you can ever hope to inspire. Yet, after all, it will be a diversion—it will be fun to see how he will act," mused the fair plotter.

It required all of Kate's courage and a dismal sacrifice of pride to suggest the ride to Captain Studdiford, but she did it the next morning, stopping him near the fort after having walked not thirty feet behind for more than two hundred yards. She was a trifle insecure as to her own valour in this preliminary step.

The rosiness of her cheeks might have been by others attributed to the chill of the December morn, but she knew they were the flames from an inward fire.

Captain Studdiford's heart thumped unusually fast as he looked down into the piquant face and big blue eyes, which for the first time since he had known her, wore a gleam bordering on embarrassment. They were very soft and timid this morning—there was something appealing in their tempting depths.

"May I not walk with you? I am going your way," were her first words as she reached his side.

"Whither, pray?"

"Oh, to—" and here she blushed, for in truth she had no destination—"to Anna Corwin's," she concluded in relief.

"But Mistress Corwin lives back yonder. How came you to be going this way?"

"Did I say Anna Corwin?"

"If I am not deaf."

"Then I must have meant some one else; to be sure I did—how queer of me. I am going to Lucy's. You cannot say, sir, that she does not live in this direction. I'll not walk with you if you are bound to be particular, though." Her little ears were very red.

"I beg you to forgive me and allow me to walk with you," cried the Captain eagerly.

"I like that much better. No matter if I were going to Anna's and chose a roundabout way, you should not be so impolite as to remonstrate. As a rule, Captain, the men prefer the roundabout way."

"Be it miles I would walk it with thee," cried he, smiling at her merry vanity.

"Oh, would you do that?" she asked, suddenly seeing her way clear. Yet, in spite of all, her composure deserted her and she blurted it out, turning red again. "I am dying to ride to 'Big Fork' tomorrow, but I have no one to accompany me. Would you like to go?" Then to herself, "What a fool he thinks me!"

"Gladly; but, are we sure there are no stray Indians about?" he asked, rather quickly.

"He is afraid," she thought, with strange disappointment. "If you are afraid, we will not go," she said a trifle coldly.

"Afraid? Not for myself, but for you. We will go if you like, and I should rejoice to meet all of the Indians in Virginia if it will please you."

So they made their plans, and she was so loth to leave him that he was forced to remind her that they had passed the home of Lucy Gaines a full furlong or more. He left her at the door, his heart exultant, hers all a-flutter.

The next afternoon the two rode forth from Jamestown and into the forest, following the well-made road which led to the westward beneath the red and yellowing oaks. Half an hour previous to their departure five young men had ridden from the home of Lucy Gaines, strange bundles strapped to their saddles. Above all things, they had cautioned Kate to demand the Captain's proof of marksmanship at a point near Big Fork.

It was with some consternation, notwithstanding all the plotting, that Kate observed the big pistols at the Captain's side and the heavy sword which jangled against his leg. That jangling sword gave her the tremors, and she cast many furtive glances toward its chain and scabbard. At last she was compelled to ask:

"How can you, I pray, use such a monstrous sword, Captain Studdiford? It must have been made for a giant." "It was; it was my great-great-grand-father's over a century ago. See! It is serviceable, even in my weak hand." He pulled the gleaming blade, long and heavy, from its scabbard, and swept it downward through the air so fiercely that it resembled a wide sheet of silver. Kate's blue eyes grew wide with apprehension, a cold chill seized upon her and her ruddy face paled. He returned the weapon to its sheath with such a forceful crash that she started violently in her saddle, her little teeth clicking in sheer affright.

"I could cleave a man's skull in twain as easily as you can cut an apple. Would that we could meet a warlike Indian that I could show you how it merits my praise."

"Goodness!" gasped Kate hopelessly. "You would not strike a—a—man with it, would you?"

"If he were an enemy. For you, loved one, I could cut down an army." Their horses drew more closely side by side and the fierce, strong hand was gently laid upon her trembling fingers. Tenderly clasping the little one the big one raised it until it touched the lips of him who leaned across to kiss it. Their eyes met as he raised his head. His were full of love, hers with a pleading dread, the uncertain quiver between love and fear. Without a word he dropped the hand, suddenly sick at heart.

"I could die for her and she despises me," he groaned to himself.

"Oh, what have I—have we done?" she thought, a thousand fears gathering in her heart. "He is no coward and he will kill one of them! How can I tell him—how can I save their lives? He will despise me! That awful sword! A man's skull! Oh, dear! He called me loved one! How big and strong he is! He called me—how can I keep him from using the sword? The pistols I can manage and—perhaps they will not be there. He will kill them all—horror upon horror! What have I done? Oh!" the last exclamation was so loud and so sudden that the pale Captain turned quickly.

"What is it? What is it?"

She laughed wildly, even gleefully, almost in the face of her companion.

"Nothing—nothing at all!" she cried.

"I am glad to have afforded you amusement, Mistress Fortune. You may tear my heart to shreds."

Her manner changed instantly. Tears flew to the blue eyes and her hand crept toward him.

"Forgive me, pray, Captain Studdiford, I—I did not mean to hurt you. I—I—am very foolish, very unkind. You must hate me," she faltered.

"Hate you! How could I? You do not love me—why should I have hoped? I can but blame myself." Her hand had fallen to her side because he had not touched it. "And it is our last afternoon together."

"Last?" she repeated, faintly.

"Yes; for I shall not see you again."

"Oh—you—you—do not mean that!"

"I have asked to be transferred to Willamsburg. I—I have not one friend in Jamestown; why should I stay here?" he cried bitterly.

"But you have," she exclaimed, eagerly; "you have. I am your friend."

"Friend! That is not what I ask of you," he said, almost gruffly.

Silence, broken only by the clatter of the hoofs upon the road followed his words. In her confusion she had forgotten the terrible sword, but it recurred to her, and, with it, the thought which had given birth to her untimely mirth, the thought that was to lead her from the chief predicament into which she had been cast. She would ask the Captain to turn back to Jamestown at once, avoiding the possibility of conflict.

"Captain Studdiford, I believe we had better turn back." Her face grew crimson beneath his calm gaze. "As you like. You will grant me time to adjust my saddle girth; it is slipping," he said coolly, dismounting without another word.

They were fully three miles from the village, and in a dense piece of forest. On either side of the narrow road grew the thickest of underbrush with the great, gaunt trees stretching above like silent sentinels. The girl's mind was chaos; her thoughts were changing and interchanging like leaves before the whirling wind. She knew that she admired this man, and that something even sweeter was beginning to throb its way into her heart. A half smile came to her troubled face as she thought of the war-painted plotters two miles away, waiting to make a coward of her hero. A touch of remorse came to her as she remembered her part in the play, and that the plot would have been carried out had she not seen the great swing of that fearful sword. What havoc it would have wrought! And he was to leave Jamestown! Without a friend, he had said. How could he say that?

In the midst of these varying thoughts she allowed her softening eyes to wander from him toward the trees above and the straggling brush beneath their knotty limbs. A suppressed scream called the Captain's attention to her staring eyes. They were blinking with consternation.

Deep in the underbrush she had seen the form of an Indian warrior! Horrors! The sword!

"What do you see?" cried he, staring toward the now deserted brush.

"Nothing—nothing!" she gasped. "Yes—I mean, that red bird! See? Do shoot it for me—I must have it! Isn't it beautiful?" She was excitedly pointing toward a red bird in the top branches of a big oak.

He drew his pistols and deliberately aimed with one of them. The shot missed and the bird darted away.

"Oh, goodness!" she cried. "Try the other one!"

"But the bird is gone."

"Is it? So it is—but, quick! See if you can cut off that twig up there—the one with three red leaves. I wager you cannot! Quick, and then we will ride for home."

"Why are you so excited?"

"I am not the least bit excited—I never am! Why do you not shoot at that twig?"

"You try it," he surprised her by saying, pushing a pistol into her hand. Without a word or aim she blazed away at the sky and his firearms were useless. She handed the smoking pistol to him with a laugh.

"Would it not be awful if Indians came upon us!" she cried, with strange exultation. "But mount, and race with me to the spring!"

As the Captain placed his foot in the stirrup a yell burst from the thicket, an arrow whizzed above their heads, and a half-a-dozen, fierce warriors were dashing toward them.

"Do not use your sword!" she screamed.

Before the bewildered soldier could catch his breath an ugly brave was in the road, not ten feet away, knife in hand. Out whizzed the sword!

Kate screamed in agony, clasping her hand over her eyes.

"They are friends! Do not strike!"

But it was too late. The streak of steel cut the air. A sickening thud, a gurgling howl, and the assailant fell, his head half severed from his body. An instant later the big Englishman was in his saddle. A second slash and an Indian at his side went down beneath the ancestral blade!

The two horses plunged forward as a brawny redskin grasped her arm and she felt herself being dragged to the ground. Then a hand clasped her other arm, a big form leaned over behind her, far across the back of her horse. She heard the hiss of something cutting the air, the crash as of splitting wood, a scream, of agony and the Indian's ruthless grasp was loosened. Her horse stumbled and seemed to totter beneath her, but again that arm from aloft exerted itself and it seemed as if she were being lifted to the tree tops. Almost before she could realise it she was upon another horse, clasped in the arm of its rider, and they were off like the wind.

Suddenly she felt the form of the man who held her so closely drop forward with a groan and then straighten again slowly. Exultant yells came from behind them, several arrows whizzed past, and then naught was heard but the thunder of the horse's hoofs upon the frozen road. As her eyes opened involuntarily, terror possessing them, they fell upon the scene far behind. Two hundred yards away her own horse lay struggling in the road, two human forms stretched near it, another dragging itself to the roadside. Three feathered Indians were some fifty yards nearer, gesticulating wildly. Her brain whirred and buzzed, and—consciousness was lost!

When she regained her senses she was lying upon the ground. With feeble eyes she glanced wonderingly about. To a tree near by a horse was hitched, beneath her body were the blankets from the horse and certain garments from the back of man. All was as a dream; she could account for nothing. Studdiford was leaning against the big oak, coatless and as pale as a ghost. Deep lines stretched across his brow and down his mouth; his eyes were closed, as if in pain.

An involuntary moan escaped her lips, and the Captain was at her side almost before it had died away. She was crying.

"Oh, what have I done! What have I done!"

"Calm, yourself, dearest! You are safe—entirely so. See, we are alone, far from those devils. It is but a mile to Jamestown. Be brave and we will soon be at home," he murmured hoarsely, kneeling at her side and lifting her to a sitting posture.

"Home! I can never go home! Oh, God, you do not know—you do not know!"

"There—there! Now, be quiet."

"How could you know? I am a murderess—I am the wretch! Kill me; I cannot live!" she wailed.

"Hush!" he cautioned, lovingly.

"You could not know—you did not know them, Captain Studdiford!" she cried, sitting bolt upright, glaring wildly about her, then shudderingly plunging her white face against his shoulder. "They were not Indians," she almost whispered.

"Not Indians!" he gasped.

"God forgive me—no! It was all a trick—to test your courage—forgive me—to test—to test—oh! and I allowed you to kill them!"

"Speak! Go on! What do you mean?" "They were our friends—not Indians! My dearest friends! Oh, how is it that I am not struck dead for this? Please heaven, let me die!" she wailed.

"My God!" he exclaimed, after the first bewildering shock. "A trick—and I have killed—oh, it cannot be true!" He leaped to his feet, allowing her to fall from his side to the ground, where she lay, a wretched, shivering heap. With a ferocious oath he snatched the big sword from the ground and turned upon her, with eyes blazing, muscles quivering.

She was looking up at him, those wide blue eyes gleaming piteously.

"Kill me!" she murmured, and closed the eyes to await the stroke.

His big arm relaxed, the sword fell from his nerveless grasp, clanging to the ground.

When she reopened her eyes after an age of suspense she saw him leaning against the tree, his body shaking with sobs. A second glance and she started to her feet alarmed.

His broad back was covered with blood. Near his left shoulder the clothing was torn and an ugly, gaping wound leered at her.

"Oh," she gasped; "you—you are hurt!"

"Hurt!" he groaned. "They have killed me! You have killed me—you and your friends. I hope you—are—satisfied—with—your—see?" As he sank to the ground, he pointed feebly to the cruel arrow which he had torn from his side. It lay not far away, grim and bloody.

The horrified girl glanced at it helplessly and then at the unconscious man, unable to realise. Then she cried aloud in her agony and threw herself upon the prostrate form, moaning:

"Dead! Dead! Speak to me, Ralph—look up! I love you—I worship you! You shall not leave me!"

She kissed the pallid face, caressed the chilling head, sobbing:

"Forgive me—forgive me!"

An hour afterward the clatter of hoofs upon the road aroused her from the semi-conscious condition into which her grief had thrown her. Through the gathering darkness she saw horsemen approaching—Indian riders! A moment later they were dismounting at her side, and well-known voices were calling to her:

"Are you hurt?"

"What has happened?"

"Killed? My God!"

It was Farring, Trask and the other plotters, reeking with excitement. Their horses were wet from the fierceness with which they had been ridden.

"Do not touch him! You have killed him!" she cried, striving to shield the body from Farring's anxious touch.

"Killed him? Good God, Kate! where did you meet them!" cried Farring, as Trask pulled her from Studdiford's side.

"Are you not dead?" she finally whispered to the men.

"We? He killed three of them—split their heads! But the wretches put an arrow into him, after all. What a dreadful thing we have done! Fairly tricked him to his death!" cried poor Trask.

"Then—then it was not you?" cried Kate.

"Heavens, no! We found the Indians dragging their dead from the road, three miles back, and knew that something terrible had happened.

"Thank God! I am spared that! But he must not die—he shall not! I love him. Do you hear? I love him!"

For three weeks the victim of that ill-fated trick hung between life and death. Surgery was crude in the colonies, and the first evidence of restoration was due more to his rugged constitution than to the skill of his doctors. The poor fellow rolled and tossed upon one of Mrs. Fortune's soft beds, oblivious to the kind offices of those about him. They had taken him there at Kate's command, and she had worn herself to a shadow with anguish, love and penitence. She watched him by day and by night—in her restless dreams; her whole existence was in the tossing victim of her folly. Every twitch of that pain-stricken body seemed to show her that he was shrinking from her in hatred. Her pretty face was white and drawn, the blue eyes dark and pitiful, the merry mouth, plaintive in its hopelessness.

And those jovial tricksters—those who had jeered over his lack of courage, the testing of which they had undertaken! They were smitten by their own curses, haunted by their own shame. The fiery Trask, the polished Farring, the ingenious Holmes, with all of Jamestown, prayed for his recovery, and spared no pains to bring to life and health the man who had won that which they had relinquished hope of having—Kate's love. They were tender, sympathetic, helpful—true men and good.

Kate could not forget the look of disgust she had seen upon Studdiford's face as he stood above her with the great sword in his hand. His first thought had been to kill her!

Sitting beside him, bathing the fevered brow, caressing the rumpled hair, holding his restless hands, she could feel her heart thumping like lead, so heavy had it grown in the fear of his awakening.

Finally the doctors told her that he would recover, that the fever was broken. Then came the day when he slept, cool and quiet, no trace of fever, no sign of pain.

It was then that Kate forsook him, burying herself in her distant room, guilty and heart-broken, fearing above all things on earth, the first repellent glance he would bestow upon her. Once, while he slept, she peered through his door, going back to her room and her spinning with tears blinding the plaintive blue eyes.

At last, one day, her mother came from the Captain's room and said to her gently:

"Kate, Captain Studdiford asks why you do not come to see him. He tells me that for three days he has suffered because you have been so unkind. Go to him, dear; he promises he will not plead his love if it is so distasteful to you!"

Distasteful! The girl grew faint with wonder. Her limbs trembled, her lips parted, her eyes blurred and her ears roared with the rush of blood from her heart.

"Mother!" she whispered, at last, steadying herself against the wall. "Are you sure, Mother?"

"That he wants you? My child, his eyes fill with tears when he thinks of you. I have seen them moisten as he lies looking from the window."

But Kate was gone.

When Mrs. Fortune opened the door to the sick man's room soon afterward she drew back quickly, closed it again, and, lifting her eyes aloft, murmured:

"God make them happy!"