he asked suddenly.

Norah shook her head mournfully.

"He didn't know anyone," she answered, "only asked for water and said
things I couldn't understand. Then when Dad came he knew him at once,
but the Hermit didn't seem even to know that Dad was there."

"Did he look very bad?"

"Yes--pretty bad," said Norah, hating to hurt him. "He was terribly
flushed, and oh! his poor eyes were awful, so burning and sunken.
And--oh!--let's canter, Mr. Stephenson, please!"

This time there was no objection. Banker jumped at the quick touch of
the spur as Stephenson's heel went home. Side by side they cantered
steadily until Norah pulled her pony in at length at the entrance to the
timber, where the creek swung into Anglers' Bend.

"We're nearly there," she said.

But to the man watching in the Hermit's camp the hours were long indeed.

The Hermit was too weak to struggle much. There had been a few sharp
paroxysms of delirium, such as Norah had seen, during which David Linton
had been forced to hold the old man down with unwilling force. But the
struggles soon brought their own result of helpless weakness, and the
Hermit subsided into restless unconsciousness, broken by feeble
mutterings, of which few coherent words could be caught. "Dick" was
frequently on the fevered lips. Once he smiled suddenly, and Mr. Linton,
bending down, heard a faint whisper of "Norah."

Sitting beside his old friend in the lonely silence of the bush, he
studied the ravages time and sorrow had wrought in the features be knew.
Greatly changed as Jim Stephenson was, his face lined and sunken, and
his beard long and white as snow, it was still, to David Linton, the
friend of his boyhood come back from the grave and from his burden of
unmerited disgrace. The frank blue eyes were as brave as ever; they met
his with no light of recognition, but with their clear gaze undimmed. A
sob rose in the strong man's throat--if he could but see again that
welcoming light!--hear once more his name on his friend's lips! If he
were not too late!

The Hermit muttered and tossed on his narrow bed. The watcher's thoughts
fled to the little messenger galloping over the long miles of lonely
country--his motherless girl, whom he had sent on a mission that might
so easily spell disaster. Horrible thoughts came into the father's mind.
He pictured Bobs putting his hoof into a hidden crab-hole--falling--Norah
lying white and motionless, perhaps far from the track. That was not