s--all these were hanging upon the strength of the soldier's
arm. He knew how small the white army was. If it should be conquered,
the opposite shore might at any instant be red with victorious savages
rushing to the great Shawnee Crossing. And then--he looked at Ruth,
feeling his helplessness as he had not felt the keenest pain of his
wound. She saw the look, and felt its distress, although she did not
understand all that it meant. She gently urged him back to his chair,
frightened to see how weak he was.

"Sit still till I come back. I will run downstairs and see if there is
any news," she coaxed in a soothing tone.

The household was gathered in the great room waiting and watching. The
old ladies by the hearth scarcely noticed one another. The judge sitting
apart half started up at the faint rustle of Ruth's approach, but
finding that it was no messenger bringing news, he sat down again with a
weary sigh, and his gaze went back to the other side of the river. His
appearance told how great his anxiety was. His rugged, homely face was
haggard and unshorn, and his rough dress was even more careless than
common. William Pressley arose and came forward to give Ruth a chair.
There was no visible change in him, his dress was as immaculate as it
always was. His manner was just as coldly implacable as it had been ever
since the quarrel; but then his temper never had anything to do with his
looks or his manners. No degree of uneasiness could ever make him forget
appearances or the smallest form of courtesy; and he would have thought
it a pitiable sort of man who could be moved by emotion to any kind of
irregularity. His way of placing the chair proclaimed that he never
failed to do all that became a gentleman, no matter how neglectful
emotional people might sometimes become.

Philip Alston, coming in just at that moment, saw something of this with
mingled amusement and satisfaction. The candor of William Pressley's
self-consciousness, the sincerity of his self-conceit, the firmness of
his belief in his own infallibility, claimed a measure of real respect,
and Philip Alston gave it in full. He thought none the less of him
because he could not help smiling a little at the solemn progress which
the young lawyer was then making across the great room. To be able to
smile at anything on that day of strain was a boon. And then it was
always pleasing and cheering to see any fresh sign that he had read the
young lawyer's character ar