The injured man opened his eyes, and his free hand moved slowly till it rested on his daughter’s head.

“I got an awful crack, Ruth, but I am all right now.  Too bad to bring you home.  Who came with you?”

“Aunt Felicia and Uncle Peter,” she whispered as she stroked his uninjured hand.

“Mighty good of them—­just like old Peter.  Send the old boy up—­I want to see him.”

Ruth made no answer; her heart was too full.  That her father was alive was enough.

“I’m not pretty to look at, am I, child, but I’ll pull out; I have been hurt before—­had a leg broken once in the Virginia mountains when you were a baby.  The smoke was the worst; I swallowed a lot of it; and I am sore now all over my chest.  Poor Bolton’s badly crippled, I hear—­and Breen—­they’ve told you about Breen, haven’t they, daughter?” His voice rose as he mentioned the boy’s name.

Ruth shook her head.

“Well, I wouldn’t be here but for him!  He’s a plucky boy.  I will never forget him for it; you mustn’t either,” he continued in a more positive tone.

The nurse now moved to the bed.

“I would not talk any more, Mr. MacFarlane.  Miss Ruth is going to be at home now right along and she will hear the story.”

“Well, I won’t, nurse, if you don’t want me to—­but they won’t be able to tell her what a fix we were in—­I remember everything up to the time Breen dragged me from under the dirt car.  I knew right away what had happened and what we had to do; I’ve been there before, but—­”

“There,—­that will do, Mr. MacFarlane,” interrupted the nurse.  “Come, Miss Ruth, suppose you go to your room for a while.”

The girl rose to her feet.

“You can come back as soon as I fix your father for the night.”  She pointed significantly to the patient’s head, whispering, “He must not get excited.”

“Yes, dear daddy—­I will come back just as soon as I can get the dust out of my hair and get brushed up a little,” cried Ruth bravely, in the effort to hide her anxiety, “and then Aunt Felicia is downstairs.”

Once outside she drew the nurse, who had followed her, to the window so as to be out of hearing of the patient and then asked breathlessly: 

“What did Mr. Breen do?”

“I don’t know exactly, but everybody is talking about him.”

At this moment Miss Felicia arrived at the top of the stairs:  she had heard Ruth’s question and had caught the dazed expression on the girl’s face.

“I will tell you, my dear, what he did, for I have heard every word of it from the servants.  The blast went off before he and your father had reached the opening of the tunnel.  They left your father for dead, then John Breen crawled back on his hands and knees through the dreadful smoke until he reached him, lifted him up on his shoulders and carried him out alive.  That’s what he did; and he is a big, fine, strong, noble fellow, and I am going to tell him so the moment I get my eyes on him.  And that is not all.  He got out of bed this afternoon, though he could hardly stand, and covered up all his bruises and his broken wrist so you couldn’t see them, and then he limped down to the station so you would get the truth about your father and not be frightened.  And now he is in a dead faint.”