n't it?"

It occurred to her for a fleeting moment that they two were driftwood,
and that the salt of their tears would color their lives as the years
consumed them. But she banished from her mind all thought of
everything save the present. With a contented little sigh she seated
herself beside him; her hand stole into his and, soothed and sustained
by the comforting touch, each of the other, gradually the first terror
of their predicament faded; ere long, Donald reminded her of her
promise, and she stole to the old square piano and sang for him while,
without, Dirty Dan O'Leary crouched in the darkness and thrilled at
the rippling melody.

At ten o'clock, when Donald left the Sawdust Pile, he and Nan had
arrived at a firm determination to follow separate paths, nor seek to
level the barrier that circumstance had raised between them.

"Some day--perhaps," he whispered, as he held her to his heart in the
dark-it the garden gate. "While I live, I shall love you. Good-by, old
sweetheart!"

XIV

True to his promise, Daniel P. O'Leary declined to die that night.

"Confound your belligerent soul!" the doctor growled at dawn. "I
believe you're too mean to die."

"We'll make it a finish fight," whispered Daniel.

"I'll go you," the doctor answered, and sent for digitalis and salt
solution.

There was one other soul in Port Agnew who did not sleep that night,
either. Andrew Daney's soul, shaken by what was to him a cosmic
cataclysm, caused that good man to rise at five o'clock and go down to
the hospital for another look at Dirty Dan. To his anxious queries the
doctor shook a dubious head, but the indomitable O'Leary smiled wanly.

"Go on wit' ye!" he wheezed faintly. "I'll win be a hair-line
decision."

At seven o'clock, when the telegraph-station opened, Andrew Daney was
waiting at the door. He entered and sent a telegram to The Laird.

Return immediately.

In the late afternoon, Hector McKaye returned to Port Agnew and at
once sought Daney, who related to him exactly what had occurred. The
shadow of profound worry settled over The Laird's face.

"Dan refuses to disclose anything regarding Donald's movements,"
Daney continued, "where he followed the boy or where the fight took
place. I only know that Donald was not present; Dan, fortunately,
overheard the plot, inculcated, by some means, the idea in those
scoundrels' heads that he was Donald, and took the fight off the boy's
hands. He claimed he