Outside all was calm and quiet. The night was fine, and the stars were twinkling brightly overhead. The little front garden lay before the farmer’s eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but neither there nor on the road was any human being to be seen. With a sigh of relief, Ferrier looked to right and to left, until, happening to glance straight down at his own feet, he saw to his astonishment a man lying flat upon his face upon the ground, with arms and legs all asprawl.

So unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall with his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out. His first thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some wounded or dying man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe along the ground and into the hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a serpent. Once within the house the man sprang to his feet, closed the door, and revealed to the astonished farmer the fierce face and resolute expression of Jefferson Hope.

“Good God!” gasped John Ferrier. “How you scared me! Whatever made you come in like that?”

“Give me food,” the other said, hoarsely. “I have had no no time for bite or sup for eight-and-forty hours.” He flung himself upon the cold meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from his host’s supper, and devoured it voraciously. “Does Lucy bear up well?” he asked, when he had satisfied his hunger.

“Yes. She does not know the danger,” her father answered.

“That is well. The house is watched on every side. That is why I crawled my way up to it. They may be darned sharp, but they’re not quite sharp enough to catch a Washoe hunter.”

John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had a devoted ally. He seized the young man’s leathery hand and wrung it cordially. “You’re a man to be proud of,” he said. “There are not many who would come to share our danger and our troubles.”

“You’ve hit it there, pard,” the young hunter answered. “I have a respect for you, but if you were alone in this business I’d think twice before I put my head into such a hornet’s nest. It‘s Lucy that brings me here, and before harm comes on her I guess there will be one less o’ the Hope family in Utah.”

“What are we to do?”

“To-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you are lost. I have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle Ravine. How much money have you?”

“Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.”

“That will do. I have as much more to add to it. We must push for Carson City through the mountains. You had best wake Lucy. It is as well that the servants do not sleep in the house.”

While Ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the approaching journey, Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that he could find into a small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with water, for he knew by experience that the mountain wells were few and far between. He had hardly completed his arrangements before the farmer returned with his daughter all dressed and ready for a start. The greeting between the lovers was warm, but brief, for minutes were precious, and there was much to be done.

‘Your poor nose!’ she said, looking at that feature of his face.

‘No wonder it’s ugly,’ he replied.

She was silent for some minutes, struggling with her own self–deception. It was an instinct in her, to deceive herself.

‘But I’M happy—I think life is AWFULLY jolly,’ she said.

‘Good,’ he answered, with a certain cold indifference.

She reached for a bit of paper which had wrapped a small piece of chocolate she had found in her pocket, and began making a boat. He watched her without heeding her. There was something strangely pathetic and tender in her moving, unconscious finger–tips, that were agitated and hurt, really.

‘I DO enjoy things—don’t you?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes! But it infuriates me that I can’t get right, at the really growing part of me. I feel all tangled and messed up, and I CAN’T get straight anyhow. I don’t know what really to DO. One must do something somewhere.’

‘Why should you always be DOING?’ she retorted. ‘It is so plebeian. I think it is much better to be really patrician, and to do nothing but just be oneself, like a walking flower.’

‘I quite agree,’ he said, ‘if one has burst into blossom. But I can’t get my flower to blossom anyhow. Either it is blighted in the bud, or has got the smother–fly, or it isn’t nourished. Curse it, it isn’t even a bud. It is a contravened knot.’

Again she laughed. He was so very fretful and exasperated. But she was anxious and puzzled. How was one to get out, anyhow. There must be a way out somewhere.

There was a silence, wherein she wanted to cry. She reached for another bit of chocolate paper, and began to fold another boat.

‘And why is it,’ she asked at length, ‘that there is no flowering, no dignity of human life now?’

‘The whole idea is dead. Humanity itself is dry–rotten, really. There are myriads of human beings hanging on the bush—and they look very nice and rosy, your healthy young men and women. But they are apples of Sodom, as a matter of fact, Dead Sea Fruit, gall–apples. It isn’t true that they have any significance—their insides are full of bitter, corrupt ash.’

‘But there ARE good people,’ protested Ursula.

‘Good enough for the life of today. But mankind is a dead tree, covered with fine brilliant galls of people.’

Ursula could not help stiffening herself against this, it was too picturesque and final. But neither could she help making him go on.

‘And if it is so, WHY is it?’ she asked, hostile. They were rousing each other to a fine passion of opposition.

‘Why, why are people all balls of bitter dust? Because they won’t fall off the tree when they’re ripe. They hang on to their old positions when the position is over–past, till they become infested with little worms and dry–rot.’