Thus adjured, Gabriel rose, and lifting Mr. Hamlin in his arms with infinite care and tenderness, headed the quaint procession. Mr. Hamlin, perhaps recognising some absurdity in the situation, forbore exercising his querulous profanity on the man who held him helpless as an infant, and Olly and Pete followed slowly behind. Their way led down Reservoir Cañon, beautiful, hopeful, and bracing in the early morning air. A few birds, awakened by the passing tread, started into song a moment, and then were still. With a cautious gentleness, habitual to the man, Gabriel forbore, as he strode along, to step upon the few woodland blossoms yet left to the dry summer woods. There was a strange fragrance in the air, the light odours liberated from a thousand nameless herbs, the faint melancholy spicing of dead leaves. There was, moreover, that sense of novelty which Nature always brings with the dawn in deep forests; a fancy that during the night the earth had been created anew, and was fresh from the Maker's hand, as yet untried by burden or tribulation, and guiltless of a Past. And so it seemed to the little caravan--albeit fleeing from danger and death--that yesterday and its fears were far away, or had, in some unaccountable way, shrunk behind them in the west with the swiftly dwindling night. Olly once or twice strayed from the trail to pick an opening flower or lingering berry; Pete hummed to himself the fragment of an old camp-meeting song. And so they walked on, keeping the rosy dawn and its promise before them. From time to time the sound of far-off voices came to them faintly. Slowly the light quickened; morning stole down the hills upon them stealthily, and at last the entrance of the cañon became dimly outlined. Olly uttered a shout and pointed to a black object moving backward and forward before the opening. It was the waggon and team awaiting them. Olly's shout was answered by a whistle from the driver, and they quickened their pace joyfully; in another moment they would be beyond the reach of danger. Suddenly a voice that seemed to start from the ground before them called on Gabriel to stop! He did so unconsciously, drawing Hamlin closer to him with one hand, and with the other making a broad protecting sweep toward Olly. And then a figure rose slowly from the ditch at the roadside and barred their passage. It was only a single man! A small man bespattered with the slime of the ditch and torn with brambles; a man exhausted with fatigue and tremulous with nervous excitement, but still erect and threatening. A man whom Gabriel and Hamlin instantly recognised, even through his rags and exhaustion! It was Joe Hall--the sheriff of Calaveras! He held a pistol in his right hand, even while his left exhaustedly sought the support of a tree! By a common instinct both men saw that while the hand was feeble the muzzle of the weapon covered them. "Gabriel Conroy, I want you," said the apparition.