"He will be here directly," Darrell answered, smiling as he suddenly recalled the little note within his pocket; "he is returning from the war-path with the trophies of victory." Kate laughed and colored slightly. "Your own scalp has not suffered, at any rate," she said. "But he has brought me back a captive; here he comes now!" The wagon loaded with Darrell's belongings was just coming slowly into view, with Mr. Underwood on the seat beside the driver, the other teams having been sent to the stables by another route. Darrell noted the surprise depicted on the faces beside him, and, turning to Mrs. Dean, who stood next him, he said, in a low tone,-- "I have come back to the old home, mother, for a little while; is there room for me?" Mrs. Dean looked at him steadily for an instant, while Kate ran to meet her father; then she replied, earnestly,-- "There will always be room in the old home for you. I only wish that I could hope it would always hold you." _Chapter XIV_ DRIFTING Early the following week Darrell was established in his new office. The building containing the offices of the firm of Underwood & Walcott had, as Mr. Underwood informed Darrell, been formerly occupied by one of the leading banks of Ophir, and was situated on the corner of two of its principal streets. Of the three handsome private offices in the rear Mr. Underwood occupied the one immediately adjoining the general offices; the next, separated from the first by a narrow entrance way, had been appropriated by Mr. Walcott, while the third, communicating with the second and opening directly upon the street, was now fitted up for Darrell's occupancy. The carpets and much of the original furnishing of the rooms still remained, but in the preparation of Darrell's room Kate Underwood and her aunt made numerous trips in their carriage between the offices and The Pines, with the result that when Darrell took possession many changes had been effected. Heavy curtains separated that portion of the room in which the laboratory work was to be done from that to be used as a study, and to the latter there had been added a rug or two, a bookcase in which Darrell could arrange his small library of scientific works, a cabinet of mineralogical specimens, and a pair of paintings intended to conceal some of Time's ravages on the once finely decorated walls, while palms and blooming plants transformed the large plate-glass windows into bowers of fragrance and beauty, at the same time forming a screen from the too inquisitive eyes of passers-by.