Then there seemed to be a suspense of all nature.  Everything was deadly still—­even the moonbeams appeared no longer tremulous; soon there was a rustle as of some stealthy animal among the ferns, and then a dismounted man stepped into the moonlight.  It was the horse-thief—­the man she had kissed!

For a wild moment a strange fancy seized her usually sane intellect and stirred her temperate blood.  The news they had told her was not true; he had been hung, and this was his ghost!  He looked as white and spirit-like in the moonlight, dressed in the same clothes, as when she saw him last.  He had evidently seen her approaching, and moved quickly to meet her.  But in his haste he stumbled slightly; she reflected suddenly that ghosts did not stumble, and a feeling of relief came over her.  And it was no assassin of her father that had been prowling around—­only this unhappy fugitive.  A momentary color came into her cheek; her coolness and hardihood returned; it was with a tinge of sauciness in her voice that she said:—­

“I reckoned you were a ghost.”

“I mout have been,” he said, looking at her fixedly; “but I reckon I’d have come back here all the same.”

“It’s a little riskier comin’ back alive,” she said, with a levity that died on her lips, for a singular nervousness, half fear and half expectation, was beginning to take the place of her relief of a moment ago.  “Then it was you who was prowlin’ round and makin’ tracks in the far pasture?”

“Yes; I came straight here when I got away.”

She felt his eyes were burning her, but did not dare to raise her own.  “Why,” she began, hesitated, and ended vaguely. “How did you get here?”

“You helped me!”

“I?”

“Yes.  That kiss you gave me put life into me—­gave me strength to get away.  I swore to myself I’d come back and thank you, alive or dead.”

Every word he said she could have anticipated, so plain the situation seemed to her now.  And every word he said she knew was the truth.  Yet her cool common sense struggled against it.

“What’s the use of your escaping, ef you’re comin’ back here to be ketched again?” she said pertly.

He drew a little nearer to her, but seemed to her the more awkward as she resumed her self-possession.  His voice, too, was broken, as if by exhaustion, as he said, catching his breath at intervals:—­

“I’ll tell you.  You did more for me than you think.  You made another man o’ me.  I never had a man, woman, or child do to me what you did.  I never had a friend—­only a pal like Red Pete, who picked me up ’on shares.’  I want to quit this yer—­what I’m doin’.  I want to begin by doin’ the square thing to you”—­He stopped, breathed hard, and then said brokenly, “My hoss is over thar, staked out.  I want to give him to you.  Judge Boompointer will give you a thousand dollars for him.  I ain’t lyin’; it’s God’s truth!  I saw it on the handbill agin a tree.  Take him, and I’ll get away afoot.  Take him.  It’s the only thing I can do for you, and I know it don’t half pay for what you did.  Take it; your father can get a reward for you, if you can’t.”