silence fell upon them all. "Red" sat down on the little
window-seat, his Angela beside him. Hardy tried to smoke. They could hear
the clock ticking on and on--that little clock which had heard so much as
its hands moved around the dial during the last few pregnant hours.

Suddenly Uncle Henry, who had been looking at Morgan Pell's huddled form,
cried out;

"Hey, what's comin' off?" Had the darkness deceived him?

"Red" jumped at the question. "What's the matter?" His nerves were on edge.

"He moved!" cried Uncle Henry, excited now, and rising in his chair, which
he wheeled out into the room.

"Moved!" cried "Red." "You're crazy! He's stone dead, if ever anyone was."

"I seen him--I swear I seen him!" Uncle Henry's eyes were almost popping
from his head. "Why didn't someone do something? Why didn't they see what
he saw? Oh, to be able to walk, and not sit forever like a dried mummy in
this chair!

"But how could he have moved?" "Red" exclaimed. "He's dead, I say!"

"I don't know how he could!" Uncle Henry cried, "but he did! Look at him!"
He could scarcely control himself now.

"Maybe Lopez didn't kill him after all," "Red" said, and knelt down to
examine Pell's body again.

"Now don't tell me that!" Uncle Henry yelled. "Ain't we got trouble enough
here without him comin' back?" He could have stood any calamity, it seemed,
but the return to life of this wretched Morgan Pell.

"By golly!" "Red" exclaimed, on his knees, his hand on Pell's white face.

"Was I right?" Uncle Henry said.

"Red" rose slowly. His voice was almost a whisper. "He's alive!" he
breathed.

Gilbert, who had not taken Uncle Henry's word seriously, could not doubt
"Red's" verdict.

"Alive!" he said. "Oh, it can't be!"

For the first time Lucia moved. Her lips opened. "Alive!" she managed to
say. Again the world crumbled for her.

"It was only a flesh wound," "Red" said. "The bullet just grazed his head."

Lucia looked up. She was ashen. She was older, and her eyes seemed to have
lost their fire. "He's--really--alive?" she got out. She stared down at her
husband.

"They should of shot 'im in the stomach!" Uncle Henry stated. What a mess!
What rotten luck, ran through his weary brain.

Pell's foot moved again. Then his arm went up; and slowly he rose on one
elbow, pushed away the tablecloth that touched his head, and looked about
him. He was like a man awaking from a sound slumber. He was dazed,
mystified. In the almost complete d