how she thinks that "one crowded hour of glorious life" is worth a
whole leaden existence. That reminds her of her graduating essay,
which she digs out of the trunk, tied with baby-blue ribbon. "One
Crowded Hour" was her burning topic, but her hours and days and years
have been crowded only with homely toil and poverty and worries.

THE MAN, softened incredibly, tells her she is the gentlest thing he
ever knew.... He takes the blue ribbon and says he's going to keep it
for luck. There is a beautiful, wordless moment for her, touched by
magic into girlhood again.

Then--shouts, galloping hoofs, shots! THE MAN springs to his feet,
hands on his guns.

BROTHER, at door of rear room, his old pistol describing wavering
circles in his shaking hand, cries hoarsely,

"Harriet Mary, you come here to me! That's not the sheriff! That's
THE HAWK!"

THE MAN, with a gentle word to her, tells her to stand aside....
"They'll never put THE HAWK in a cage!"

THE GIRL, after a dazed moment, turns to a veritable fury of
resolution. The east-bound train whistles. There is still a chance,
if she can get him on board. Sound of posse riding nearer. She makes
MAN hide under the curtain where her dresses hang.

BROTHER starts toward the front door but she seizes him roughly,
pushing him back toward the bedroom.

"Listen," he gasps, "Harriet Mary--that's THE HAWK!"

"I don't care! I don't care! I don't _care_! You hush! You keep
still!" She pushes him into the room so violently that he falls,
coughing terribly, to the floor. A look of fleeting horror crosses
her face but she bangs and bolts the door. She draws the curtain more
carefully over THE MAN, flings open the front door and calls above
the clamor of the on-coming train--

"He's gone! Gone! We tried to keep him--quick--through the Pass!
_Don't you see the hoof-prints?_"

The posse wheels and thunders away. The train roars in. THE MAN,
coming out from under the curtain, snatches up her thin hand, kisses
it, dashes out. She forces herself to take the message out to the
trainmen. She comes back, stands in strained and breathless
listening.... The train pulls noisily out.

Little by little her tension relaxes. The magic robe of youth,
renewed, falls from her thin shoulders. At a sound from the inner
room she gasps, clutches h