of her ministrations for the
stranger who had stood between her and insult, was a boon that might
have repaid any man for worse hurts than his. She drew his head upon her
lap and began carefully to staunch a trickle of blood flowing from a
small cut in his temple.

The sun went down, regretfully backing out of sight, and by its slow
retreat seeming loath to leave them to the somber night. She did not
notice its decline, but in the afterglow leaned nearer, pushing back his
matted hair and searching each of his well-molded features. There was
nothing of a personal interest in the look; there was nothing in the
contact of their touch that aroused in her the least personal appeal. He
was merely a thing hurt, a thing wounded in her defense.

Again from outside the window came a call, the swinging, twilight-eerie
notes of a whip-poor-will; while, from afar off, somewhere in the black
woods, hooted an owl. Softly, but with a restless spirit, the
night-wind began to stir; and a murmur, like the winnowing of many
wings, passed tremulously through the branches which swept the
schoolhouse roof. But now she was unafraid.

CHAPTER III

THE WOUNDED MOUNTAINEER

She was no longer fearful for his life. Saner deductions had recalled
how he was fighting up to the moment Tusk threw him off, and this
precluded the probability of a broken neck. The small abrasion over his
temple, where it must have struck a desk, could alone be responsible for
the unconsciousness which, she now felt assured, would soon be passing.

Had Jane been dressed as a nun, the picture she made with the young
mountaineer's head upon her lap would have startled the world. None of
those discerning critics who stalk the galleries on varnishing day could
have passed a canvas such as this without bending their rusty knees at
least one creak in humble reverence. For God had carefully blessed her
with a Madonna-like loveliness, a matchless purity, which held
enthralled all who came suddenly upon that look. Perhaps it was not
known in Heaven where she got her smile. It was this, when rippling from
eyes to mouth, and lingering about the ovals of her cheeks, that could
have swayed Faith upon its base or chained it thrice firmly to the Rock.

She had first acquired a pleasant suspicion of this years before in the
convent up the valley, where the good sisters had given her shelter.
Early one morning on mischief bent, at the very peep of dawn, she had
filched the g