d ploughing little furrows in the ground. A quarter of the
distance covered! Betty had passed the top of the knoll now and she
was going down the gentle slope like the wind. None but a fine
marksman could have hit that small, flitting figure. The yelling and
screeching had become deafening. The reports of the rifles blended
in a roar. Yet above it all Betty heard Wetzel's stentorian yell. It
lent wings to her feet. Half the distance covered! A hot, stinging
pain shot through Betty's arm, but she heeded it not. The bullets
were raining about her. They sang over her head; hissed close to her
ears, and cut the grass in front of her; they pattered like hail on
the stockade-fence, but still untouched, unharmed, the slender brown
figure sped toward the gate. Three-fourths of the distance covered!
A tug at the flying hair, and a long, black tress cut off by a
bullet, floated away on the breeze. Betty saw the big gate swing;
she saw the tall figure of the hunter; she saw her brother. Only a
few more yards! On! On! On! A blinding red mist obscured her sight.
She lost the opening in the fence, but unheeding she rushed on.
Another second and she stumbled; she felt herself grasped by eager
arms; she heard the gate slam and the iron bar shoot into place;
then she felt and heard no more.

Silas Zane bounded up the stairs with a doubly precious burden in
his arms. A mighty cheer greeted his entrance. It aroused Alfred
Clarke, who had bowed his head on the bench and had lost all sense
of time and place. What were the women sobbing and crying over? To
whom belonged that white face? Of course, it was the face of the
girl he loved. The face of the girl who had gone to her death. And
he writhed in his agony.

Then something wonderful happened. A warm, living flush swept over
that pale face. The eyelids fluttered; they opened, and the dark
eyes, radiant, beautiful, gazed straight into Alfred's.

Still Alfred could not believe his eyes. That pale face and the
wonderful eyes belonged to the ghost of his sweetheart. They had
come back to haunt him. Then he heard a voice.

"O-h! but that brown place burns!"

Alfred saw a bare and shapely arm. Its beauty was marred by a cruel
red welt. He heard that same sweet voice laugh and cry together.
Then he came back to life and hope. With one bound he sprang to a
porthole.

"God, what a woman!" he said between his teeth, as he thrust the
rifle forward.

It was indeed not a time for inaction. Th