“What’s up now, Salomy Jane?” he demanded excitedly.

“Nothin’,” said the girl with an effort.  “Nothin’, at least, that I can find.”  She was usually truthful because fearless, and a lie stuck in her throat; but she was no longer fearless, thinking of him.  “I wasn’t abed; so I ran out as soon as I heard the shots fired,” she answered in return to his curious gaze.

“And you’ve hid my gun somewhere where it can’t be found,” he said reproachfully.  “Ef it was that sneak Larrabee, and he fired them shots to lure me out, he might have potted me, without a show, a dozen times in the last five minutes.”

She had not thought since of her father’s enemy!  It might indeed have been he who had attacked Jack.  But she made a quick point of the suggestion.  “Run in, dad, run in and find the gun; you’ve got no show out here without it.”  She seized him by the shoulders from behind, shielding him from the woods, and hurried him, half expostulating, half struggling, to the house.

But there no gun was to be found.  It was strange; it must have been mislaid in some corner!  Was he sure he had not left it in the barn?  But no matter now.  The danger was over; the Larrabee trick had failed; he must go to bed now, and in the morning they would make a search together.  At the same time she had inwardly resolved to rise before him and make another search of the wood, and perhaps—­fearful joy as she recalled her promise!—­find Jack alive and well, awaiting her!

Salomy Jane slept little that night, nor did her father.  But towards morning he fell into a tired man’s slumber until the sun was well up the horizon.  Far different was it with his daughter:  she lay with her face to the window, her head half lifted to catch every sound, from the creaking of the sun-warped shingles above her head to the far-off moan of the rising wind in the pine trees.  Sometimes she fell into a breathless, half-ecstatic trance, living over every moment of the stolen interview; feeling the fugitive’s arm still around her, his kisses on her lips; hearing his whispered voice in her ears—­the birth of her new life!  This was followed again by a period of agonizing dread—­that he might even then be lying, his life ebbing away, in the woods, with her name on his lips, and she resting here inactive, until she half started from her bed to go to his succor.  And this went on until a pale opal glow came into the sky, followed by a still paler pink on the summit of the white Sierras, when she rose and hurriedly began to dress.  Still so sanguine was her hope of meeting him, that she lingered yet a moment to select the brown holland skirt and yellow sunbonnet she had worn when she first saw him.  And she had only seen him twice!  Only twice!  It would be cruel, too cruel, not to see him again!

She crept softly down the stairs, listening to the long-drawn breathing of her father in his bedroom, and then, by the light of a guttering candle, scrawled a note to him, begging him not to trust himself out of the house until she returned from her search, and leaving the note open on the table, swiftly ran out into the growing day.