me where life was the forfeit. A spectral finger seemed to
rest upon the blood-red spot of every board. No sound came from the
drinking-saloon in front. The miners had all withdrawn. Only the
barkeeper and a few personal friends kept willing vigil.

About nine o'clock an answering telegram came to Slater: "Girl just
leaving on special. Will make all speed possible."

Haney faintly smiled when Williams read this message to him. "I knew
it," he whispered, "she'll come." Then his lips set in a grim line. "And
I'll be here when she comes." Thereafter he had the look of a man who
hangs with hooked fingers in iron resolution above an abyss, husbanding
every resource--forcing himself to think only of the blue sky above him.

A little later the priest knocked at the door and asked to see the dying
man, but to this request Haney shook his head and whispered. "No, no;
I've no strength to waste--'tis good of him. Wait! Tell him to be
here--to marry us--" And with this request the priest was forced to be
content. "May the Lord God be merciful to him!" he exclaimed fervently,
as he turned away.

Once again, about midnight, the wounded man roused up to say: "The
ceremony must be legal--I want no lawsuits after. The girl must be
protected." He was thinking of his brothers, of his own kind, rapacious
and selfish. Every safeguard must be thrown around his sweetheart's
life.

"We'll attend to that," answered Williams, who seemed able to read his
partner's thoughts. "We'll take every precaution. He wants the judge to
be present as well as the priest," he explained to the doctor, "so that
if the girl would rather she can be married by the Court as well as by
the Church."

Every man in the secret realized fully that the girl was being endowed
with an immense fortune, and that she would inevitably be the quarry of
every self-seeking relative whose interest would be served by attacking
her rights in the premises. "The lawsuits must be cut out," was
Williams' order to the judge. "Mart's brothers are a wolfish lot. We
don't want any loose ends for them to catch on to."

From time to time messages flashed between the oncoming train and the
faithful watchers. "It's all up grade, but Johnson is breaking all
records. At this rate she'll reach here by daylight," said Slater. "But
that's a long time for Mart to wait on that rough bed," he added to
Williams, with deep sympathy in his voice.

"I know that, but to move him would hasten his deat