you ready?"
yells a voice from the bank.

"Ready? Yes--shoot away!"

And Lamont, with his half-unconscious charge, is hauled to the bank, he
gripping with death-like force the end of the fir-pole, under the
impression that he is warding off a hostile spear from his heart. Once
on firm ground though, and relieved of the strain, he soon recovers
himself.

"Put her between the sheets and give her something hot," he enjoins.
"Quick, not a moment to lose. I'm off to try the same prescription
myself. So long--but it was a near thing."

Those who came up had been present on that other occasion that day two
years ago, and remembered it vividly--remembered this man's answer, "I
daresay I can risk my life for an adequate motive." Here, then, he had
literally fulfilled his words. And--now he was married.

Clare--no longer Vidal--about to start for a drive, looking lovelier
than ever in the sharp English winter air, and the dainty furs which set
off the beautiful face, was mightily astonished to behold her proprietor
sprinting up the avenue, looking, as he asserted he felt, like a
half-drowned rat.

"Had an adventure?" he panted. "Must first get dry, then tell you all
about it."

"Oh, I'm dying to hear. The carriage can go back now. I shall not go
out this afternoon."

Half an hour later she was hearing about the accident at the spring
hole.

"You ran a great risk," she said. "Piers, did you never think of me
when you took your life in your hands?"

"Very much so. But I couldn't stand by and leave her to drown, could
I?"

"Of course not I was only trying you. But--tell me. Did it bring back
just a little of the old feeling? Not a wee tiny echo of it?"

He took her hands in his.

"Not the faintest shadow, darling. You believed in me from the very
first--that other one did not. And besides--"

"And besides--what?"

"You are infinitely the more beautiful of the two."

"I shan't be that long if you go on giving me what you men call `swelled
head'," she answered brightly. "Look. There's the post African mail
day too."

"So it is," taking up the letters which were brought in. "Here's a
great screed from Peters. Full of the mine, I suppose."

We heard Squire Courtland refer to Lamont having struck a gold mine. As
an actual fact he had, and it had come about in rather a peculiar way.
After peace was restored he and Peters had made their way out to the
farm, to see how things were looking; but