rhaps. We can try."

Gopher Jones was not proof against the brisk confidence with which Mrs.
Paget demanded admittance. He stroked his unshaven chin while he chewed
his quid, then reluctantly got his keys.

The prisoner was sitting on the bed. His heart jumped with gladness when
he looked up.

Diane shook hands cheerfully. "How is the criminal?"

"Better for hearing your kind voice," he answered.

His eyes strayed to the ebon-haired girl in the background. They met a
troubled smile, grave and sweet.

"Awfully good of you to come to see me," he told Sheba gratefully. "How
is Macdonald?"

"Better, we hope. He knew Diane this afternoon."

Mrs. Paget did most of the talking, but Gordon contributed his share.
Sheba did not say much, but it seemed to the young man that there was
a new tenderness in her manner, the expression of a gentle kindness
that went out to him because he needed it. The walk had whipped the
color into her cheeks and she bloomed in that squalid cell like a desert
rose. There was in the fluent grace of the slender, young body a naive,
virginal sweetness that took him by the throat. He knew that she
believed in him and the trouble rolled from his heart like a cold,
heavy wave.

"We haven't talked to Mr. Macdonald yet about the attack on him,"
Diane explained. "But he must have recognized the men. There are many
footprints at the ford, showing how they moved over the ground as they
fought. So he could not have been unconscious from the first blow."

"Unless they were masked he must have known them. It was light enough,"
agreed Elliot.

"Peter is still trying to get the officers to accept bail, but I don't
think he will succeed. There is a good deal of feeling in town against
you."

"Because I am supposed to be an enemy to an open Alaska, I judge."

"Mainly that. Wally Selfridge has been talking a good deal. He takes it
for granted that you are guilty. We'll have to wait in patience till Mr.
Macdonald speaks and clears you. The doctor won't let us mention the
subject to him until he comes to it of his own free will."

Gopher stuck his head in at the door. "You'll have to go, ladies. Time's
up."

When Sheba bade the prisoner good-bye it was with a phrase of the old
Irish vernacular. "God save you kindly."

He knew the peasant's answer to the wish and gave it. "And you too."

The girl left the prison with a mist in her eyes. Her cousin looked at
her with a queer, ironic little smile of aff