“You figured you were handing me over to the hangman,” smiled Kent.  “It’s true I shouldn’t have made that confession, old man, if I hadn’t rated you right next to God Almighty when it came to telling whether a man was going to live or die.  But we all make slips.  I’ve made ’em.  And you’ve got no apology to make.  I may ask you to send me good cigars now and then while I’m in retirement at Edmonton, and I shall probably insist that you come to smoke with me occasionally and tell me the news of the rivers.  But I’m afraid, old chap, that I’m going to worry you a bit more here.  I feel queer today, queer inside me.  Now it would be a topping joke if some other complication should set in and fool us all again, wouldn’t it?”

He could see the impression he was making on Cardigan.  Again his faith in the psychology of the mind found its absolute verification.  Cardigan, lifted unexpectedly out of the slough of despond by the very man whom he expected to condemn him, became from that moment, in the face of the mental reaction, almost hypersympathetic.  When finally he left the room, Kent was inwardly rejoicing.  For Cardigan had told him it would be some time before he was strong enough to stand on his feet.

He did not see Mercer all the rest of that day.  It was Cardigan who personally brought his dinner and his supper and attended him last at night.  He asked not to be interrupted again, as he felt that he wanted to sleep.  There was a guard outside his door now.

Cardigan scowled when he volunteered this information.  It was sheer nonsense in Kedsty taking such a silly precaution.  But he would give the guard rubber-soled shoes and insist that he make no sound that would disturb him.  Kent thanked him, and grinned exultantly when he was gone.

He waited until his watch told him it was ten o’clock before he began the exercise which he had prescribed for himself.  Noiselessly he rolled out of bed.  There was no sensation of dizziness when he stood on his feet this time.  His head was as clear as a bell.  He began experimenting by inhaling deeper and still deeper breaths and by straightening his chest.

There was no pain, as he had expected there would be.  He felt like crying out in his joy.  One after the other he stretched up his arms.  He bent over until the tips of his fingers touched the floor.  He crooked his knees, leaned from side to side, changed from one attitude to another, amazed at the strength and elasticity of his body.  Twenty times, before he returned to his bed, he walked back and forth across his room.

He was sleepless.  Lying with his back to the pillows he looked out into the starlight, watching for the first glow of the moon and listening again to the owls that had nested in the lightning-shriven tree.  An hour later he resumed his exercise.

He was on his feet when through his window he heard the sound of approaching voices and then of running feet.  A moment later some one was pounding at a door, and a loud voice shouted for Doctor Cardigan.  Kent drew cautiously nearer the window.  The moon had risen, and he saw figures approaching, slowly, as if weighted under a burden.  Before they turned out of his vision, he made out two men bearing some heavy object between them.  Then came the opening of a door, other voices, and after that an interval of quiet.