s dragged out their weary minutes, every minute an age to
the taut, ragged nerves of the girl.

The dawn came stealing across the tree-tops, while the ground still
lay in utter darkness. Ruth rose and slipped farther back into the
bushes.

Suddenly she found herself upon her knees in the soft grass, and the
hot, angry tears of desperation and rage at herself were softened. Her
heart was lighted up with the glow of dawn and sang its prayer to God;
a thrilling, lifting little prayer of confidence and wonder. The
words that the night before would not form themselves for her now
sprang up ready in her soul--the words of all the children of earth,
to Our Father Who Art in Heaven--paused an instant to bless her lips,
then sped away to God in His Heaven. Fear was gone, and doubt, and
anxiety. She would save Jeffrey, and she would save the poor, befooled
people from ruin. God had told her so, as He walked abroad in the
_Glow_ of _Dawn_.

Two long hours more she waited, but now with patience and a sure
confidence. Then Rafe Gadbeau came out of the hut and strode down the
path to his pony.

Ruth rose stiff and wet from the ground and ran to the door, and
called to Jeffrey. The only answer was a moan. The door was locked
with a great iron clasp and staple joined by a heavy padlock. She
reached for the nearest stone and attacked the lock frantically. She
beat it out of all semblance to a lock, but still it defied her. There
was no window in the hut. She had to come back again to the lock. Her
hands, softened by the months in the convent, left bloody marks on the
tough brass of the lock. In the end it gave, and she threw herself
against the door.

Jeffrey was lying trussed, face down, on a bunk beside the furnace
where they boiled the sugar sap. His arms were stretched out and tied
together down under the narrow bunk. She saw that his left arm was
broken. For an instant the girl's heart leaped back to the rage of
the night when she had almost prayed for her rifle. But pity swallowed
up every other feeling as she cut the cords from his hands and
loosened the rope that they had bound in between his teeth.

"Don't talk, Jeff," she commanded. "I can see just what happened. Lie
easy and get your strength. I've got to take you to French Village at
once."

She ran out to bring water. When she returned he was sitting dizzily
on the edge of the bunk. While she bathed his head with the water and
gave him a little to drink, she talke