"Low," she said, bending over him, "Daddy John's been to Sacramento and has brought back wonderful news."

He turned his head with an effort and looked at her. His glance was vacant as if he had only half heard, as if her words had caught the outer edges of his senses and penetrated no farther.

"He has seen David."

Into the dull eyes a slow light dawned, struggling through their apathy till they became the eyes of a live man, hanging on hers, charged with a staring intelligence. He made an attempt to move, lifted a wavering hand and groped for her shoulder.

"David!" he whispered.

The news had touched an inner nerve that thrilled to it. She crouched on the edge of the bunk, her heart beating thickly:

"David, alive and well."

The fumbling hand gripped on her shoulder. She felt the fingers pressing in stronger than she had dreamed they could be. It pulled her down toward him, the eyes fixed on hers, searching her face, glaring fearfully from blackened hollows, riveted in a desperate questioning.

"What happened to him?" came the husky whisper.

"He fell from the rock; thinks he had a sunstroke up there and then lost his balance and fell over and rolled under a ledge. And after a few days a train came by and found him."

"Is that what he said?"

Her answering voice began to tremble, for the animation of his look grew wilder and stranger. It was as if all the life in his body was burning in those hungry eyes. The hand on her shoulder clutched like a talon, the muscles informed with an unnatural force. Was it the end coming with a last influx of strength and fire? Her tears began to fall upon his face, and she saw it through them, ravaged and fearful, with new life struggling under the ghastliness of dissolution. There was an awfulness in this rekindling of the spirit where death had set its stamp that broke her fortitude, and she forgot the legend of her courage and cried in her agony:

"Oh, Low, don't die, don't die! I can't bear it. Stay with me!"

The hand left her shoulder and fumblingly touched her face, feeling blindly over its tear-washed surface.

"I'm not going to die," came the feeble whisper. "I can live now."

Half an hour later when Daddy John came in he found her sitting on the side of the bunk, a hunched, dim figure against the firelight. She held up a warning hand, and the old man tiptoed to her side and leaned over her to look. Courant was sleeping, his head thrown back, his chest rising in even breaths. Daddy John gazed for a moment, then bent till his cheek was almost against hers.

"Pick up your heart, Missy," he whispered. "He looks to me better."

CHAPTER IV

From the day of the good news Courant rallied. At first they hardly dared to hope. Bella and Daddy John talked about it together and wondered if it were only a pause in the progress of his ailment. But Susan was confident, nursing her man with a high cheerfulness that defied their anxious faces.