sound, unlike any other. It was an occasional muffled
beat--interrupted at uncertain intervals, but always returning in
regular rhythm, whenever it was audible. He knew it was made by a
cantering horse; that the intervals were due to the patches of dead
leaves in its course, and that the varying movement was the effect of
its progress through obstacles and underbrush. It was therefore coming
through some "blind" cutoff in the thick-set wood. The shifting of the
sound also showed that the rider was unfamiliar with the locality, and
sometimes wandered from the direct course; but the unfailing and
accelerating persistency of the sound, in spite of these difficulties,
indicated haste and determination.

He swung his gun from his shoulder, and examined its caps. As the
sound came nearer, he drew up beside a young spruce at the entrance of
the thicket. There was no necessity to alarm the house, or call the
other sentry. It was a single horse and rider, and he was equal to
that. He waited quietly, and with his usual fateful patience. Even
then his thoughts still reverted to his wife; and it was with a
singular feeling that he, at last, saw the thick underbrush give way
before a woman, mounted on a sweating but still spirited horse, who
swept out into the open. Nevertheless, he stopped in front of her, and
called:--

"Hold up thar!"

The horse recoiled, nearly unseating her. Collinson caught the reins.
She lifted her whip mechanically, yet remained holding it in the air,
trembling, until she slipped, half struggling, half helplessly, from
the saddle to the ground. Here she would have again fallen, but
Collinson caught her sharply by the waist. At his touch she started
and uttered a frightened "No!" At her voice Collinson started.

"Sadie!" he gasped.

"Seth!" she half whispered.

They stood looking at each other. But Collinson was already himself
again. The man of simple directness and no imagination saw only his
wife before him--a little breathless, a little flurried, a little
disheveled from rapid riding, as he had sometimes seen her before, but
otherwise unchanged. Nor had HE changed; he took her up where he had
left her years ago. His grave face only broadened into a smile, as he
held both her hands in his.

"Yes, it's me--Lordy! Why, I was comin' only to-morrow to find ye,
Sade!"

She glanced hurriedly around her, "To--to find me," she said
incredulously.

"Sartain! That ez, I was goin' to