But her cry was lost on the moaning
wind.

Presently a man wrapped in a fur-trimmed coat turned the corner and
almost ran over the prostrate form. He halted suddenly and spoke to her.
No answer.

He shook her. Only a faint groan.

Then he stepped to the saloon, and after a sharp, decided knock by way
of announcement, entered.

"Does the girl lying outside belong to anyone here? She is nearly
frozen."

A couple of men stepped to the door and peered out.

"It's Dam Crow's girl. She was in here a huntin' him."

"Where is her father?"

"That's him," pointing to a man lying on a bench behind the stove.

"Guess he's asleep," said the man, smiling broadly.

"Wake him, and hurry about it," said the gentleman.

But Damon Crowley was not in a sleep that could be easily broken. Like a
beast he lay. The spittle oozed from his mouth and spread over his dirty
beard in true drunkard fashion. When told that his daughter was just
outside freezing, he could only grunt.

"Where is his home?"

"Small use to take her there," one man observed, recounting part of the
interview that had taken place a short time before. But no one knew
where he lived. The muffled man left the saloon abruptly, evidently much
disgusted.

Stepping into the street he called a cab just passing. After having had
the half-dead girl placed in the vehicle, the gentleman followed,
slamming the door.

Then he took off his great coat and threw it over her tattered garments.

Judge Thorn was a tender-hearted man.

CHAPTER II.

THE THORNS AT HOME.

The Thorn homestead, like the family whose name it bore, was magnificent
and substantial in an unassuming way. Its gray gables seemed to look
with a frown on the gingerbread style of architecture that had grown up
around it. Under the trees on its lawn, three generations of Thorns had
grown to man's estate, and every one of them had become a lawyer.

It had been the hope of the present occupant that when he left the
estate he might leave it in the hands of a son, but this was not to be.

After a short married life his wife died, leaving him childless.

Some years later he married a second time. When his first child was born
and he was told it was a daughter, he was disappointed. When the second
child came and was also a girl, his disappointment verged on resentment.
Through the hours of anxious waiting that preceded the arrival of the
third child, he walked the floor in a state of mind alterna