Paul Colbert got up suddenly and began to walk the room, though he staggered from weakness.  He could not sit still under the torture of such suspense, when he thought of all that was at stake on the outcome of the conflict which might even then be waging beyond those spectral trees.  The safety of the people living along the river, their homes, their lives—­all these were hanging upon the strength of the soldier’s arm.  He knew how small the white army was.  If it should be conquered, the opposite shore might at any instant be red with victorious savages rushing to the great Shawnee Crossing.  And then—­he looked at Ruth, feeling his helplessness as he had not felt the keenest pain of his wound.  She saw the look, and felt its distress, although she did not understand all that it meant.  She gently urged him back to his chair, frightened to see how weak he was.

“Sit still till I come back.  I will run downstairs and see if there is any news,” she coaxed in a soothing tone.

The household was gathered in the great room waiting and watching.  The old ladies by the hearth scarcely noticed one another.  The judge sitting apart half started up at the faint rustle of Ruth’s approach, but finding that it was no messenger bringing news, he sat down again with a weary sigh, and his gaze went back to the other side of the river.  His appearance told how great his anxiety was.  His rugged, homely face was haggard and unshorn, and his rough dress was even more careless than common.  William Pressley arose and came forward to give Ruth a chair.  There was no visible change in him, his dress was as immaculate as it always was.  His manner was just as coldly implacable as it had been ever since the quarrel; but then his temper never had anything to do with his looks or his manners.  No degree of uneasiness could ever make him forget appearances or the smallest form of courtesy; and he would have thought it a pitiable sort of man who could be moved by emotion to any kind of irregularity.  His way of placing the chair proclaimed that he never failed to do all that became a gentleman, no matter how neglectful emotional people might sometimes become.

Philip Alston, coming in just at that moment, saw something of this with mingled amusement and satisfaction.  The candor of William Pressley’s self-consciousness, the sincerity of his self-conceit, the firmness of his belief in his own infallibility, claimed a measure of real respect, and Philip Alston gave it in full.  He thought none the less of him because he could not help smiling a little at the solemn progress which the young lawyer was then making across the great room.  To be able to smile at anything on that day of strain was a boon.  And then it was always pleasing and cheering to see any fresh sign that he had read the young lawyer’s character aright, and he was glad to see again what a good-looking, well-mannered, right-minded young fellow he was.  Nothing could be said against