But this thing she had done for him--if his deductions were correct--was the act of a woman. And such a woman! Unreasonable and unwarranted it was! Unjustified and uncalled-for it was! But also it was magnificent! This much Allston appreciated and responded to with a thrill. And yet even so he had not begun to plumb the depths of her intense little being. He interpreted her act as one of heroic self-sacrifice based upon an exaggerated sense of gratitude for the protection he had given her. That was enough, God knows, to spur him on, but it left out, too, so much--so much. The windows of the Kester house were dark when he reached there. That told him nothing. He pounded at the door without response and that told him more. Roxie would not have been as difficult as this to rouse. With his worst fears revived, he kicked at the wooden panels as the rain beat down upon him. The passing minutes were becoming of more and more value. He tried the latch and shook it impatiently when he heard shuffling footsteps within. A voice called to him--the voice of an old and timid woman. “Who’s thet?” she demanded. He answered with a question. “Is Roxie there?” “Roxie hyar? No, Roxie ain’t hyar. She’s up to Miss Wilmer’s. Who be you-all?” Allston had already taken a step back. The wind tore his reply to shreds. He must make the mountain road now as fast as the night would let him--remembering always to keep plenty of strength in reserve. One thing helped him; the afternoon he had returned from that little cove on the mountain-side Howe had questioned him as to where he had been. As he told, Howe clapped a hand upon his shoulder. “Big Laurel is up there. Keep away,” he warned. “Why?” “You must have been within a few hundred yards of Childers’s shack.” It was not that fact which left so vivid an impression in Allston’s mind, but what he had thought while walking by the side of Wilmer. He was glad enough now, however, that it served to place him. He could have returned to that cove with his eyes shut. Against a background of storm-rent clouds and the formidable bulk of mountains and a sea of tossing trees, a man is but a tiny object. With the night and the winds and the beating rain against him, it would seem that he would count for no more than a dead leaf. And yet ever since man was man and not merely some grubbing insect, the elements have spent their fury against him in vain. Again and again on the ocean and on the desert, in the frozen North and the tropic South, on mountain-top and plain, man has faced their worst and often enough survived. If at times he is pitifully easy to kill, at other times he is unconquerable.