id Ambrose. "You must have been a little girl
then!"

"I fourteen year old then. My mot'er got 'not'er osban' now. Common
man. They gone with Buffalo Lake people. I not care. All tam I think
of my fat'er. He is one fine man.

"Las' summer the priest come here. Mak' good talk, him. Say if we
good, bam-by we see the dead again. What you think, is that true talk,
Angleysman?"

Ambrose's arm tightened around the wistful child. "Honest truth!" he
whispered.

She opened her simple heart fully to him. Her soft speech tumbled out
as if it had been dammed all these years, and only now released by a
touch of kindness.

Ambrose was touched as deeply as a young man may be by a woman he does
not love, yet he could not help glancing over her head at the square of
sky obliquely revealed through the window. It gradually darkened.

"The moon has gone down," he said at last.

Nesis clung to him. "Ah, you so glad to leave me!" she whimpered.

He gently released himself. "Think of me a little," he said. "I must
get a long start before daylight."

She buried her face on her knees. Her shoulders shook.

"Nesis!" he whispered appealingly.

She lifted her head and flung a hand across her eyes. "No good cry,"
she murmured. "Come on!"

Nesis led the way out through the hole they had dug. Job followed
Ambrose. Outside, for greater safety, he took the dog in his arms.

The moon had sunk behind the hill across the river, but it was still
dangerously bright. Nesis took hold of Ambrose's sleeve and pointed
off to the right. She whispered in his ear:

"Ev'ry tam feel what is under your foot before step hard."

She did not make directly for the river, but led him step by step up
the hill toward a growth of timber that promised safety. The first
hundred yards was the most difficult.

They rose above the shack into the line of vision of the guards in
front, had they elevated their eyes. Nesis, crouching, moved like a
cat after a bird.

Ambrose followed, scarcely daring to breathe. Even the dog understood
and lay as if dead in Ambrose's arms.

The danger decreased with every step. When they gained the trees they
could fairly count themselves safe. Even if an alarm were raised now
it would take time to find them in the dark.

Nesis, still leading Ambrose, pattered ahead as if every twig in the
bush was familiar to her. She did not strike down to the river until
they had gone a good way around the side o