During the transit Alida clove to Rhoda Polly when she could, and when she could not (because of that young person's surprising activity), she fell back on Hugh Deventer. Not once did she look at me, and if I approached she would slip away to the other side. The four Italians lifted the stretcher and began the ascent. Morn was just beginning to break, so there was not much time. The Tuscans marched to a kind of grunting chorus, as if they were counting numbers slowly. They arranged their own work and rested when they had enough. Once the cleared alley-way of the forest was reached the work became easy. Now the march was on the level. We found the garden gate locked on the inside, but Hugh gave me a hoist up, and in a moment I had it open. My father, ever a light sleeper, was easily awakened, indeed his student's lamp still burned in his room, and he took it up when he went to warn Linn. She came out sternly composed, listened silently to my report of what Dr. Wilson had said, and what still remained to be done. Then she nodded, still without words, and with a decided air she moved towards their bedroom. At first sight of Linn, Alida had sprung forward and caught her foster-mother in her arms. Linn gently kissed her, but immediately released herself, that she might be able to give all her attention to her husband. The leave-takings were of the scantiest. The Italians were on fire to be off before the morning broke. I repeated the directions about the _interne_ Vallier up at the hospital to my father. Then we struck riverward through the pines, racing the sun. Rhoda Polly arrived far in front, and in a few minutes we were on the water again. It was not till we landed on the little greensward above the backwater where I hid the boat that we asked one another, "Where is Hugh?" As we did so the sun rose and lighted up the world and all its problems with the terrible clarity of morn, and by it we saw clearly that Hugh Deventer had stayed behind. Rhoda Polly and I looked at one another till we could look no longer, and then, in spite of the danger, we burst into a peal of the gayest laughter. CHAPTER XXXV A CAPTAIN OF BRIGANDS The beaten wolves had slunk back to their lairs, but the fierceness of their hate may be guessed from the fact that they would neither bury their dead nor permit us to do it. Thrice was a burying party fired upon, and it was only in the dead of night that Jack Jaikes and Brown succeeded in cleaning the wide square in front of the main gate of the factory. Dennis Deventer had the iron gate new clamped and strengthened. On the second night it was swung into place by the aid of an improvised crane, which Dennis made, if not like the Creator "out of nothing," yet out of the first things which came handy. Our messes were now rather smaller. Between the Orchard and the Main Gate attacks we had lost so many that the posts had to be strung out wider to cover the long mileage of wall which had to be guarded.